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Title: Black America
A study of the ex-slave and his late master
Author: Sir W. Laird Clowes
Release date: December 27, 2025 [eBook #77558]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Cassell and Co, 1891
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK AMERICA ***
BLACK AMERICA.
[Illustration: THE “BLACK BELT.”]
BLACK AMERICA:
_A STUDY OF THE EX-SLAVE AND HIS LATE MASTER_.
BY
W. LAIRD CLOWES.
_REPRINTED, WITH LARGE ADDITIONS, FROM “THE TIMES.”_
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE_.
1891.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
[Illustration: Circular decorative emblem showing a woman in fur
clothing holding a staff, surrounded by stylized foliage and the text
‘La Belle Sauvage.’]
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION vii
THE BLACK BELT 1
THE EX-SLAVE AS MASTER 19
THE EX-SLAVE AS HE IS 67
THE POSITION OF THE SOUTHERN WHITE 127
SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS 151
THE IDEAL SOLUTION 181
APPENDIX:—
A. THE POPULATION OF THE SOUTH 216
B. COLOUR CASTE 217
C. SLAVERY IN THE NORTH 224
D. THE GROWTH OF THE COLOURED RACE 232
INDEX 233
INTRODUCTION.
In the autumn of 1890 I was commissioned by _The Times_ to go to the
southern part of the United States in order to study upon the spot the
conditions of the very extraordinary social problem which has gradually
arisen there during the past two hundred years, and which has assumed
new and peculiar importance since the manumission of the negroes and
“coloured” people, and the nominal extension to them of all the
privileges of American citizenship. For this study I was in some degree
prepared, not only by a long-indulged fondness for the subject, but also
by a previous residence in the United States. The result of my inquiries
took the form of a series of ten letters, which appeared in _The Times_
in November and December, 1890, and in January of the present year.
These letters, with considerable additions, and with such corrections as
fuller knowledge and the kind assistance of numerous correspondents have
suggested, are now reprinted. They embrace, I think, a fair and
comprehensive view of the problem in all its most significant aspects. I
have conversed, without prejudice, with whites and with blacks, with
Republicans and with Democrats, with men who are in office, and with men
who are anxious to find themselves there; and I have not consciously
closed my ears to any argument from any quarter. This volume, therefore,
may, I trust, be accepted as containing a true account of a state of
affairs which is without parallel in the history of modern civilisation,
and which is, no doubt, destined to exercise a momentous, and possibly a
terrible, influence upon the future of America.
Briefly summarised, the situation in the South is as follows. The
inhabitants, black and white, have all been given equal rights by the
amended Constitution of the Union. Each man of full age is as much a
citizen as his fellow. That is the view of the law, from Maine to
California. But in the South there are several millions of people whose
veins contain more or less negro blood. A generation ago these people,
or their parents, were, almost without exception, slaves in the hands of
the Southern whites. A great revolution was effected. The black suddenly
ceased to be a slave; and, within a few years, he was presented not only
with his freedom, but also, in theory at least, with all the privileges
that were previously the sole possession of the white. This raising of
the black from the depths of slavery to the heights of citizenship was
the work of outside forces. It was not done by the Southern white, nor,
save as regards mere manumission, was it done with his approval or
consent. He was not in a position to resist the will of the victorious
North. Indeed, the North imperiously forced its will upon him, and even
used as its agents the very blacks who had but just been liberated from
bondage. This policy created bad blood between whites and blacks. From
the moment of its full enforcement harmonious working between blacks and
whites in the field of politics, and in most other spheres, became
impossible. The Southern white assumed a sullenly rebellious attitude.
He determined that he would render a dead letter the grant of
citizenship to the black; and to a very large extent he has done so.
But, in the meantime, the black, in certain districts, has been
increasing more rapidly than the white; and to-day, in some of those
districts, he actually outnumbers him, while in others he equals him,
and will outnumber him in the early future. Still, nevertheless—even
where he is in a conclusive minority—the Southern white persists in his
dogged resolution not to allow the black to meddle with the machinery of
government, not to permit him for an instant to wear the full robe of
citizenship that has been presented to him by the North. This is the
bare kernel of the situation. Hitherto the black has, upon the whole,
meekly submitted to this illegal deprivation of his rights. Can he be
expected to submit for ever? Or will he some day attempt by force to
seize that to which he is by law entitled? Should he ever do this,
either alone or backed by all the resources of the North, there will be
a scene of horror such as the South never witnessed in the darkest days
of the Civil War. So much is absolutely certain.
What follows aspires to be an impartial review not only of the present
aspects but also of the past history of the complex problem which has
thus been created. It includes, also, a humble suggestion for the
permanent solution of that problem. I have attempted to show, firstly,
where the problem exists in its most pressing and dangerous form;
secondly, the reasons which impel the South to refuse to
constitutionally solve the problem by allowing the majority to rule;
thirdly, the intolerable position of the Southern black; and, fourthly,
the intolerable position of the Southern white. The position of all
parties concerned naturally demands that some way out of the difficulty
should be invented. I have, therefore, gone on to show, fifthly, what
solutions have been advocated, and why they must all be ineffective;
and, sixthly, what appears to me to be the best, the most just, and the
only radical solution.
This solution is one which, I admit, I almost despair of seeing carried
out. The peaceable removal of the negroes from the United States, and
their establishment across the ocean in a country and in circumstances
that would be propitious not only to their own development but also to
the development of their barbarous kindred, are measures which would
involve very great expense. But it is not, I believe, on the score of
expense that the average American is likely to reject the scheme. His
great inheritance provides him with wealth more than sufficient to
enable him to pay all his debts, including those huge ones which he owes
to the black. He is much more likely to adopt a characteristic attitude
such as he has adopted in the past towards many other threatening
questions. One of the most distinguished of living American statesmen
said to me in November last: “If my country should ever come to
frightful disaster, it will be, I am convinced, because it is the
incurable habit of my countrymen to cherish the belief that they are so
much the special care of Providence that it would be superfluous, on
their part, to take even simple and ordinary precautions for their own
protection.”
BLACK AMERICA.
CHAPTER I.
THE BLACK BELT.
The total population of the United States, exclusive of Alaska and of
the Indian Territory, was, according to the official returns of the
Tenth Census, 50,155,783. This Census was taken as long ago as 1880; but
it is, and will for some time continue to be, the latest enumeration
concerning which full statistical details are in possession of the
world. An Eleventh Census was taken in June, 1890. This, so far as has
as yet been ascertained, fixes the population of the great Republic at
62,622,250.[1] The details of it are, however, still unknown. We are
altogether in the dark as to how many of the people are males and how
many females, how many white and how many coloured; and months, if not
years, may be expected to elapse before the hard-working Census Bureau
at Washington shall find itself in a position to enlighten us upon these
and other particular points of interest. But there is no reason to
suppose that the full details of the Eleventh Census will, when they are
published, greatly surprise the statistical experts who have made a
special study of the increase of American population in the past and of
its probable increase in the future; nor are there any signs that the
results of the Eleventh Census will, upon one point of special
significance, be much more reassuring than were those of the Tenth. That
point of special significance is the rate of increase of the coloured
people in certain extensive sections of the old slave-holding States of
the South. This rate of increase has hitherto been vastly superior to
that of the white people in the same districts, and is a thing of no new
growth. The four States, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia, were numbered for the first time in 1790. Their white and
coloured populations in that year and in the year 1880, and the rates of
increase per cent. during the ninety intermediate years, are shown in
the following tables:—
Footnote 1:
NOTE.—See Appendix.
WHITE POPULATION.
──────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────
│ 1790. │ 1880. │Increase
│ │ │ per
│ │ │ Cent.
──────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────
Virginia │ 442,117│ 880,858│ 99·2
North Carolina│ 288,204│ 867,242│ 200·9
South Carolina│ 140,178│ 391,105│ 179·0
Georgia │ 52,886│ 816,906│ 1,442·9
──────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────
COLOURED POPULATION.
──────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────
Virginia │ 305,493│ 631,616│ 106·7
North Carolina│ 105,547│ 531,277│ 402·4
South Carolina│ 108,895│ 604,332│ 454·9
Georgia │ 29,662│ 725,133│ 2,344·6
──────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────
While, therefore, in the ninety years the white population of the four
States has grown from 923,385 to only 2,956,111, the coloured population
has grown from 549,597 to 2,492,358. In other words, while the whites
have increased only 220·1 per cent., the blacks have increased 353·4 per
cent., and the latter have been continuing to increase with superior
speed in face of the facts that now for more than a generation black
immigration has practically ceased, and that the black race is
considerably shorter-lived than the white. It is remarkable, too, that
in each of the four States the rate of increase has been greater among
the blacks than among the whites.
In only the above-mentioned four of the eight old Slave States of the
South was there a Census in 1790. The first census of Mississippi was
taken in 1800, of Louisiana in 1810, of Alabama in 1820, and of Florida
in 1830. The first enumerations of the eight States showed a total white
population of 1,066,711; the Census of 1880 showed the white population
to be 4,695,253, an increase of 340·2 per cent. On the other hand, the
first enumerations of the eight States showed a coloured population of
but 654,308, while the Census of 1880 showed a coloured population of no
less than 4,353,097, or an increase of 563·7 per cent. Whereas,
therefore, at the earliest enumerations the blacks formed only about 38
per cent. of the population, they formed in 1880 about 48 per cent. In
short, in these States, and in the period under review, the blacks
steadily drew ever nearer and nearer to the attainment of a numerical
majority. In 1860 they were still nearly half a million behind the
whites. To-day, in the eight old Slave States of the South the whites
and the blacks are practically equal in numbers, and in several
individual States the blacks have a formidable and growing majority.
It is in these last States most particularly that what is known as the
Negro Problem constitutes the most serious and complex social question
of the hour. For most of the other States of the Union the problem
possesses as yet only a secondary interest. The total number of negroes
and coloured people in the whole of the United States in 1880 was
6,580,793. Of these, 4,353,097 lived, as has been seen, in the eight old
Slave States of the South, and there formed practically one-half of the
population; 1,660,674 lived in the seven border States, Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee, with
7,132,457 white fellow-citizens around them; and the remaining 567,022
were all but lost among the 31,575,260 whites—not to mention the Chinese
and Indians—in the rest of the Union. So sparse, indeed, is the negro
population, save in the fifteen States that have been named, that it
need not be considered as a factor of any weight whatever; but in those
fifteen States it is an ever-present force that demands recognition by
all political parties. The fifteen States may be thus grouped:—
─┬──────────────┬───────────────────┬──────────
│ │ Population, 1880. │Percentage
│ │ │ of
│ │ │Coloured.
─┼──────────────┼─────────┬─────────┼──────────
„│ „ │ White. │Coloured.│ „
─┼──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
A│Missouri │2,022,826│ 145,350│ 6·7
„│Kentucky │1,377,179│ 271,451│ 16·4
„│Delaware │ 120,160│ 26,442│ 18·1
„│Maryland │ 724,693│ 210,230│ 22·4
„│Texas │1,197,237│ 393,384│ 24·7
„│Tennessee │1,138,831│ 403,151│ 26·1
„│Arkansas │ 591,531│ 210,666│ 26·2
─┼──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
B│North Carolina│ 867,242│ 531,277│ 37·9
„│Virginia │ 880,858│ 631,616│ 41·7
„│Georgia │ 816,906│ 725,133│ 47·0
„│Florida │ 142,605│ 126,690│ 47·1
„│Alabama │ 662,185│ 600,103│ 47·5
─┼──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────
C│Louisiana │ 454,954│ 483,655│ 51·4
„│Mississippi │ 479,398│ 650,291│ 57·5
„│South Carolina│ 391,105│ 604,332│ 60·6
─┴──────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────
In the States grouped under A, or, at least, in portions of them, the
negro question occasionally assumes importance, though it is normally
dormant. That it is not more often to the fore appears to result mainly
from the political apathy or stupidity of the coloured population, which
is frequently in a position, acting with organisation and method, to
affect the balance of parties. In the States grouped under B the power
of the negro is, theoretically, considerably greater. He has a vote in
North Carolina if he be an actual citizen and not a convict; in Virginia
if he be an actual citizen and not a lunatic, idiot, convict, duellist,
or soldier; in Georgia if he be an actual taxpaying citizen and not a
lunatic, idiot, or criminal; in Florida if he be a United States
citizen, or have declared an intention of becoming one, and if he be not
a lunatic, idiot, criminal, duellist, or bettor on elections; and in
Alabama if he be a citizen, or have declared an intention of becoming
one, and if he be not an idiot, an Indian, or a person convicted of
crime. In none of these States is it definitely required that the negro
voter shall be able to read or write; in only one is it required that he
shall be even a taxpayer. The general requisites are merely manhood, a
certain length of residence, and registration. Finally, in the States
grouped under C, the negro is, if only he cared, and were permitted, to
exercise his franchise, all-powerful. In Louisiana the qualification for
the suffrage at present excludes no male citizen who, being of age, is
not an idiot, lunatic, or criminal. In Mississippi the law is equally
generous. In South Carolina the male citizen who is of age may vote
unless he be a lunatic, an inmate of an asylum, almshouse, or prison, a
duellist, or a soldier. There is no property or taxpaying qualification.
The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States
declares that “the right of the citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on
account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude;” and the
spirit of that amendment is, in theory, most fully honoured by all the
Commonwealths. So completely is this the case that in 1880 the voting
populations of the three States (C) were officially returned as:—
──────────────┬─────────┬─────────
│ White. │Coloured.
──────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Louisiana │ 108,810│ 107,977
Mississippi │ 108,254│ 130,278
South Carolina│ 86,900│ 118,889
──────────────┴─────────┴─────────
The slight coloured voting inferiority in Louisiana in 1880 is
attributable to the high rate of infant and child mortality among the
negroes as compared with the whites. It probably exists no longer. There
is now, almost beyond question, a very considerable coloured voting
majority in all these States, and probably a slight one in Alabama as
well. The American Constitution recognises the right of the majority to
rule. The impartial observer, therefore, might expect to find the
government of Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, and possibly
also of Alabama, almost, if not entirely, in the hands of the negro and
coloured majority; but upon his arrival in the South he finds no trace
of anything of the kind. He finds, on the contrary, that the white man
rules as supremely as he did in the days of slavery. The black man is
permitted to have little or nothing to say upon the point; he is simply
thrust on one side. At every political crisis the cry of the minority
is, “This is a white man’s question,” and the cry is generally uttered
in such a tone as to effectually warn off the black man from meddling
with the matter.
I purpose later to show by what methods the white man attains his object
when the usual cry fails to produce the whole of the expected result. I
purpose also to show some of the reasons that are advanced by the
Southern white man for his consistent refusal to countenance any negro
interference in the affairs of State. For the present I confine myself
to indicating the situation as it is and as it will be, and to
suggesting that the existing white supremacy, whether it be for good or
for evil, cannot continue indefinitely, and must eventually give place,
either by free concession or as a tribute to brute force, to a new order
of things.
Not only in Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, as wholes, is
there a negro majority among the population, a similar majority exists
in nearly all the low-lying portions of the Southern States, from the
Chesapeake to Florida and from Florida to the borders of Mexico, and
especially in those low-lying districts that are removed from the great
towns.[2] The face of the country consists, speaking broadly, of
hill-tracts, and of cities, where the whites are in a majority, and of
lowlands, where the blacks are numerically supreme; and there are
obvious natural reasons at the bottom of this division of the races.
Heat is irksome to the Anglo-Saxon and correspondingly grateful to the
negro. Trade, mining, and manufactures attract the white man;
agriculture and tillage are preferred by the black. In the undrained
lowlands the negro constitution defies fevers and other ills that often
weaken if they do not actually prove fatal to the white man’s health.
And so, apart from questions of births and deaths, some parts of the
Southern States tend to every year become blacker, while others as
steadily become whiter.
Footnote 2:
NOTE.—See Map.
And the process which is initiated by geographical and climatic
considerations is regularly aided by economical ones. The white man
cannot compete as a labourer, or even as an artisan, upon equal terms
with the black. He needs higher pay and better food. In black centres,
therefore, the poor white man finds himself daily becoming more and more
out of his element. Ordinary petty village trades, such as cobbling,
tailoring, smithery, and carpentry, are thus, throughout the South,
falling very much into the hands of the negroes; while the poor white
men, who once had a monopoly of such humble pursuits, are going
elsewhere in search of employment. They go, not to the uplands and
cities of the South, but to the North, and, above all, to the new West,
where every working man with strong arms, a good head, and an honest
heart, has to-day the most brilliant of prospects.
The blacks, on the other hand, move about very little. They appreciate
such little comforts as they have been able to gather around them since
their manumission, and neither the cold North nor the half-settled West
has any charms for them. They have at present no strong ambitions and
very few wants. In the estimation of ninety-nine out of a hundred of
them a cabin in sunny South Carolina is a much more desirable thing than
a five-storeyed house in New York or Chicago, and immeasurably
preferable to a store in Nebraska or a hut in Wyoming. Moreover, the
black likes to be among his black kinsmen. A white man may occasionally
persuade himself to regard a negro as his brother, in theory at least.
The black man cares little for theory, and bluntly recognises the white
man as a person of alien and, upon the whole, objectionable character
from surface to core. And even the most sympathetic white man prefers,
in practice, to be surrounded by a white majority rather than by a
black, especially when he is at home in the bosom of his family.
These considerations, almost as much as the superior fecundity and fewer
wants of the negro, are leading the Black Belt of the South to become
blacker than ever. White immigration has almost ceased; white emigration
is growing. In 1880, as has been shown, there were 391,105 whites and
604,332 blacks in South Carolina. Of these only 7,686, or ·7 per cent.,
were of foreign birth. Twenty years before, the number of foreign-born
people in the State had been 9,986, and in 1870 it had been 8,074. In
the eight old Slave States of the South (B and C) there were, in 1860,
148,662 foreign-born residents, in 1870 but 123,931, and in 1880 only
119,686; while of persons born out of the States, but within the United
States, there were 1,813 less in 1880 than in 1870. These are facts
which, even if taken alone, are of deep significance. Still more
striking, however, are some estimates which have been drawn up for me by
a distinguished statistical expert at Washington, and which show the
probable numerical aspect of the race question in the eight old Slave
States in the near future. Several years ago Professor E. W. Gilliam
published a forecast of the developments of the present situation. His
estimate of the rate of increase of the Southern whites and negroes was
somewhat more alarmist than that which I am now able to give. The new
estimate is based upon the general, though not upon the detailed,
results of the Census of 1890; and as it also makes allowance for the
often alleged imperfections of the Census of 1870, I think that it may
be accepted as, upon the whole, a better one than that of Mr. Gilliam,
or, indeed, than any that has yet been attempted. I feel bound to
mention Mr. Gilliam’s name in connection with this matter, for his
tables have been very widely quoted, and have been made the foundation
of much discussion and speculation. I only reject them because I have
others which are the results of fuller and later knowledge. Mr.
Gilliam’s views on some unfortunately less changeable aspects of the
race question remain to-day as true and as valuable as when they were
committed to paper seven years ago, and I hope to quote them when, after
having completed the dry statistical survey of the whole subject, I
proceed to deal with the difficulties and dangers of the Southern
problem. Here, in the meantime, is my informant’s estimate of the white
and coloured populations of the Black Belt States in the years 1900 and
1910 respectively:—
──────────────┬───────────────────┬───────────────────
│ 1900. │ 1910.
──────────────┼─────────┬─────────┼─────────┬─────────
„ │ White. │Coloured.│ White. │Coloured.
──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
North Carolina│1,010,000│ 865,000│1,100,000│1,020,000
Virginia │ 985,000│ 835,000│1,050,000│ 965,000
Georgia │1,060,000│1,090,000│1,190,000│1,310,000
Florida │ 295,000│ 245,000│ 380,000│ 340,000
Alabama │ 870,000│ 935,000│1,000,000│1,125,000
Louisiana │ 582,000│ 755,000│ 655,000│ 915,000
Mississippi │ 645,000│ 840,000│ 750,000│ 965,000
South Carolina│ 465,000│ 875,000│ 510,000│1,055,000
──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────
│5,912,000│6,440,000│6,635,000│7,695,000
──────────────┼─────────┴─────────┼─────────┴─────────
│ 12,352,000 │ 14,330,000
──────────────┴───────────────────┴───────────────────
As illustrating the moderation of this estimate, it is worth while
adding that Professor Gilliam, writing in 1883, was of opinion that,
from 1880 onwards, the whites in the South might be expected to increase
at the rate of 2 per cent. per annum, and to double their numbers in
thirty-five years, and that the blacks in the South might be expected to
increase at the rate of 3½ per cent. per annum and to double their
numbers in twenty years. These formulæ would give to the eight old Slave
States about 9,390,000 whites in 1915, and about 17,400,000 blacks in
1920. The actual rate of increase is, however, a comparatively
unimportant matter. The significant fact of the situation is that in
three or four of the eight States the coloured population already
outnumbers the white, and that in every one of the remaining four or
five States the existing white majority has been for years growing
smaller and smaller, and bids fair within a very short period to
disappear entirely, and to make place for an overwhelming and
ever-growing black majority.
At present, even in South Carolina, which is the “blackest” State in the
Union, the white, and the white alone, rules. He seized power, in
self-defence it is true, by fraud and violence, and he retains it by
deception and intimidation; yet, strange to say, even the most respected
and (in ordinary dealings) upright white people of the South excuse and
defend this course of procedure; and, stranger still, very many
honourable citizens of the North, Republicans as well as Democrats, do
not hesitate to declare, “If I were a Southern white man I should act as
the Southern white men do.” The cardinal principle of the political
creed of 99 per cent. of the Southern whites is that the white man must
rule at all costs and at all hazards. In comparison with this principle
every other article of political faith dwindles into ridiculous
insignificance. White domination is a living question that dwarfs tariff
reform, protection, free trade, and the very pales of party. The white
who does not believe in it above all else is regarded as a traitor and
an outcast. The race question is, in the South, the sole question of
burning interest. If you be sound on that question you are one of the
elect; if you be unsound, you take rank as a pariah or as a lunatic.
After the War of Secession the North complacently folded its hands and
announced that the race problem had been for ever disposed of. It soon
learned that such had not been precisely the case. Then, after making an
ill-advised and spasmodic effort at settlement, it declared that the
race problem was no longer its affair, and that it might be left to
solve itself. But since then years have elapsed, and the question still
remains unsettled, paralysing the South, menacing the whole Union, and
liable at any moment to involve hundreds of thousands of miles of
territory and millions of human lives in a catastrophe scarcely inferior
to that of the great Civil War. Is it not time, then, for something to
be done towards freeing the South from the incubus of the situation, and
the North from the danger that lurks still along the line which, less
than a generation ago, saw Federal and Confederate striving in vain to
settle this very question?
It may be asked: Why cannot the South submit itself to the operation of
those principles by which the North is governed? Why not allow the
majority—no matter what may be its hue—to rule?
The answer is that the experiment has been to some extent tried, and has
utterly failed. The history of the attempt and of the failure is given
in the following chapter. The outlines of that history must be studied
by every one who aspires to understand the nature and difficulties of
the Southern problem as it exists to-day. I do not, therefore, apologise
for setting forth at some length the gloomy narrative of one of the most
extraordinary episodes in the modern history of any civilised country.
If I needed further excuse, I might find it in the fact that my story,
though it deals with events of comparatively recent occurrence and of a
very terrible character, is unknown to the majority of Englishmen. Even
in the North it is now well-nigh forgotten; and only in the
long-suffering South are the hideous lessons of it still fully
remembered.
CHAPTER II.
THE EX-SLAVE AS MASTER.
The Civil War ended in 1865, and the Confederacy lay crushed and dead.
With it died slavery in the United States. The Slavery Question was, of
course, the _fons et origo_ of the war, but it was by no means the sole,
or even the ostensible, point at issue between North and South. Nor was
anything beyond the mere manumission of the slave ever involved in the
slavery question. The North did not fight that the manumitted slave
might be placed on terms of perfect equality with the white man, or even
that he might obtain the franchise. It fought, so far as slavery was
concerned, for manumission, and for nothing else; and it gained its
point. The point is expressed in the Amendment XIII. to the
Constitution, which declares that “neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.”
And it may be said at once that there is now nowhere in the United
States any party which regrets that slavery has been abolished, or which
would restore it to-morrow, even if it were able to do so by a stroke of
the pen. Yet there is, and always has been, not merely in the South, but
also in the North and West, a very powerful party which is of opinion
that the manumitted slave and the uneducated negro and coloured man
ought not to be placed on terms of perfect equality with the white man,
and ought not to be permitted to exercise the franchise. Indeed, the
slave’s emancipation, as well as his citizenship, was effected as a
tribute to military and political, rather than to moral, exigencies.
Writing to W. S. Speer, on October 23rd, 1860, Mr. Lincoln said:—
“I appreciate your motive when you suggest the propriety of my writing
for the public something disclaiming all intention to interfere with
slaves or slavery in the States; but in my judgment it would do no
good. I have already done this many, many times, and it is in print
and open to all who will read.”
And, writing to Mr. Lincoln on December 26th following, Mr. Seward
said:—
“I met on Monday my Republican associates on the Committee of
Thirteen, and afterwards the whole Committee. With the unanimous
consent of our section, I offered three propositions which seemed to
me to cover the ground of the suggestion made by you through Mr. Weed,
as I understood it. First, that the Constitution should never be
altered so as to authorise Congress to abolish or interfere with
slavery in the States. This was accepted.”
This attitude of the Republican leaders changed as the war went on; but
even then the giving to the negro of full political rights and perfect
equality was not contemplated. Amendment XIII. says nothing on that
head, and Mr. Lincoln, in his last days, expressed himself as opposed to
such a wholesale measure. But, the South having been conquered, means
had to be devised for keeping it for a time under political subjection,
and no means were more obvious or ready to hand than, firstly, a
military occupation, with all that such occupation entails; and,
secondly, the extension of the suffrage and of the full rights of
citizenship to the people who, up to the time of the war, had been
slaves. These people, not two or three per cent. of whom possessed the
simplest rudiments of education, naturally looked upon the North as a
Heavensent deliverer, and were in consequence anxious, when they
obtained the suffrage, to support their Northern friends. Thus they were
Republicans almost to a man. The Southern whites were, and still are,
with nearly equal unanimity, Democrats. In the North, so far as my
observation enables me to judge, the Republican party enfolds the
majority of the brains and ability of the population. In the South,
beyond all doubt, the Democratic party is the party of knowledge and
mental power. And in the South, moreover, so far as educated white men
are concerned, it is practically the only party. There are Southern
Republicans; but they are, almost without exception, negroes, coloured
people, or the lowest and most ignorant class of whites.
At first, the process of “reconstructing” the ex-Confederate States was
not made to involve the employment of the liberated slave as an agent
for the subjection of his former master; but as time went on the black
man’s obvious utility was perceived. The following sketch will show how
the eight old Slave States in which there was, and still is, the largest
negro and coloured element, passed from the condition in which they
found themselves at the end of the war to the condition in which they
are at the present moment. The particulars concerning Alabama are mainly
summarised from a paper by Mr. Hilary A. Herbert, member of Congress for
that State; those concerning North Carolina from a paper by Mr. Zebulon
B. Vance, United States Senator for that State; those concerning South
Carolina from a paper by Mr. John J. Hemphill, member of Congress for
that State; those concerning Georgia from a paper by Mr. Henry G.
Turner, member of Congress for that State; those concerning Florida from
a paper by Mr. Samuel Pasco, United States Senator for that State; those
concerning Virginia from a paper by Mr. Robert Stiles, a distinguished
Virginian; those concerning Mississippi from a paper by Mr. Ethelbert
Barksdale, ex-member of Congress for that State; and those concerning
Louisiana from a paper by Mr. B. J. Sage. These papers, with others,
were collected and published during the past year by Mr. Hilary A.
Herbert at Baltimore, under the general title of “Why the Solid
South?”[3] and they form, I think, the most instructive key that has yet
been fitted to the great question, “Why are the United States
practically two nations?” I have had the honour of meeting several of
the writers, and I believe them to be all men of uprightness and
fairness. I have added numerous illustrative details which have been
supplied to me from other trustworthy sources, which, however, I need
not here catalogue.
Footnote 3:
“Why the Solid South? or, Reconstruction and its Results.” Baltimore:
R. H. Woodward and Co. 1899.
After the close of the war, each of the vanquished States received from
the President a provisional governor, who had authority to call a
convention to frame a constitution of government. The States soon
recognised the new situation. Under the new order of things the suffrage
was still confined to white men, and senators and representatives were
duly elected, and awaited permission to act. They were almost all
Democrats. This fact had its effect upon the Republicans, and when the
Thirty-ninth Congress opened in December, 1865, Mr. Thad. Stevens, who
thenceforth took the lead in the matter, said:—“According to my
judgment, they” (the insurrectionary States) “ought never to be
recognised as capable of acting in the Union, or of being counted as
valid States, until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to
make it what its makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual
ascendency to the party of the Union.”
Mr. Stevens’ plans were two—to reduce the representation to which the
late slave-holding States were entitled under the Constitution, and to
enfranchise blacks and disenfranchise whites. But even so late as 1865–6
the North was not prepared to grant negro suffrage. Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Connecticut, and other States, would have none of it. It was agreed,
however, in February, 1866, that neither House should admit any member
from the late Insurrectionary States until the report of a joint
committee which had been appointed to consider the question of
reconstruction should be received.
This was a declaration of war upon President Johnson’s plan of
pacification, but President Johnson did not give way. He vetoed a Bill
to confer many rights—not including suffrage—upon the freedmen, because,
in his opinion, it was unconstitutional. Then followed the struggle over
the proposed Amendment XIV. to the Constitution, an amendment which
apportioned representatives in Congress upon the basis of the voting
population, and which provided that no person should hold office under
the United States who, having taken an oath as a Federal or State
officer to support the Constitution, had subsequently engaged in war
against the Union. This struggle led to much bad blood, in spite of the
fact that the amendment in its original form did not pass.
Still worse feeling was stirred up by the action of the Freedmen’s
Bureau agents in the South. The Freedmen’s Bureau had been established
in 1865 to act as the guardian of freedmen, with power to make their
contracts, settle their disputes with employers, and care for them
generally. Many of the agents of this Bureau traded upon their position,
and, with a view to furthering their own political aspirations,
deliberately fomented race hatreds. They widely disseminated among the
freedmen a belief that the lands of their former owners were, at least
to some extent, to be divided among the ex-slaves; and, said General
Grant, “the effect of the belief in the division of lands is idleness
and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities.” A more salutary lesson
would have been that in the sweat of his face must a man earn his bread;
but this the agents, as a mass, did not teach. On the contrary, they
demoralised the labour situation in the South, and, later, nearly all of
them took advantage of, and reaped profit from, the demoralisation which
they had created. Their ranks supplied an enormous number of candidates
for office.
In the meanwhile the joint committee on reconstruction was at work. It
consisted of twelve Republicans and only three Democrats; and on the
sub-committee, which collected evidence respecting the condition of
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
and Arkansas, there was no Democrat at all.
The situation in those and the other Southern States was confessedly not
good. The ex-Confederate soldiers had returned home demoralised by
defeat, and found four millions of slaves demoralised by sudden
manumission and by the action of the Freedmen’s Bureau agents; and,
naturally, there was much friction between the races. But the
committee’s report of the nature and amount of that friction was greatly
exaggerated. As to the State of Alabama, only five witnesses were
examined, all of them being Republican politicians of notoriously
partisan character. These witnesses had everything to gain and nothing
to lose by “reconstruction”; and, as a matter of fact, when
“reconstruction” followed, one of them became Governor of his State, a
second a Senator in Congress, a third a permanent official at
Washington, a fourth a Circuit Judge in Alabama, and the fifth a Judge
of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. It may not have been
_propter hoc_, but it was certainly _post hoc_, and the coincidence is
suspicious.
Upon the strength of the report the ex-Confederate States were held to
be out of the Union. Their exact _status_ remained to be determined by
the voice of the North, as expressed at the polls. The elections were
held in due course; and on the first Monday in December, 1866, the
Republicans came back to the last session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
flushed with victory. They had a majority of thirty-one in the Senate
and of ninety-four in the House.
But President Johnson, with his vetoes, still stood firm; and “for the
purpose of securing the fruits of the victories gained” the impeachment
of the President was determined upon. I need not go into the
circumstances of that impeachment, the ultimate excuse for which was the
dismissal of Mr. Stanton from the Secretaryship of War. Suffice it to
say that Congress took steps for “the extension of the suffrage to the
coloured race in the district of Columbia, both as a right and as an
example.”
Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, discussing the Bill, said, fairly enough,
“Our ancestors placed suffrage on the broad common-sense principle that
it should be lodged in, and exercised by, those who could use it most
wisely, and most safely, and most efficiently to serve the ends for
which Government was instituted,” and “not upon any abstract or
transcendental notion of human rights which ignored the existing facts
of social life. I shall not vote to degrade suffrage. I shall not vote
to pollute and corrupt the foundations of political power, either in my
own State or in any other.” On the other hand, Senator Sumner declared,
“Now, to my mind, nothing is clearer than the absolute necessity of
suffrage for all coloured persons in the disorganised States.” (This was
in reference to an informal understanding that the late Confederate
States were to share the fate of the district of Columbia.) “It will
not,” he continued, “be enough if you give it to those who read and
write. You will not in this way acquire the voting force which you need
there for the protection of Unionists, whether white or black. You will
not secure the new allies who are essential to the national cause.”
The Bill, thus cynically supported, passed; but on January 7th, 1867,
was vetoed by the President. The Republican majority, however, was not
to be balked. In spite of the facts that all resistance to Federal
authority in the South had long since ceased, and that, according to a
decision of Mr. Justice Nelson, of the Supreme Court, States in which
the civil government had been restored under the pacific Presidential
plan were entitled to all the rights of States in the Union—in spite of
these facts Congress solemnly decided that the war was not over; and in
March, 1867, it passed the celebrated Reconstruction Acts, in face of
the President’s veto. These Acts annulled the State Governments then in
operation; divided the States into military districts, and placed them
under martial law; enfranchised the negroes; disenfranchised all,
whether pardoned or not, who had participated in the war against the
Union, if they had previously held any executive, legislative, or
judicial office under the State or general Government; and provided for
the calling of conventions, the framing and adopting of State
constitutions, and the election of State officials. In the interim the
military commanders were given absolute power, death sentences only
being subject to the approval of the President.
This action of the Republicans was far from being in accordance with the
just and statesmanlike principles of Lincoln, who, writing in 1862 to
Governor Shepley, in Louisiana, said that only respectable citizens of
Louisiana, voted for by other respectable citizens, were wanted as
representatives in Washington. “To send,” he continued, “a parcel of
Northern men here, elected, as would be understood, and perhaps justly
so, at the point of the bayonet, would be disgraceful and outrageous.”
In less than five years party spirit had blinded even great Republicans
to these dictates of generosity and far-seeing patriotism. Garfield so
far forgot his usually chivalrous character as to say exultingly, “This
Bill sets out by laying its hands on the rebel governments and taking
the very breath of life out of them; in the next place it puts the
bayonet at the breast of every rebel in the South; in the next place it
leaves in the hands of Congress, utterly and absolutely, the work of
reconstruction.”
Now, indeed, the ex-Confederate States were about to pay dearly for
their faults in the past. They had fought, and had poured forth blood
and treasure; they had been beaten, and they had submitted, but they
were not forgiven. They had enslaved the black. Henceforth, for a
season, the black, ignorant, unscrupulous, dissolute, and corrupt, was
to enslave them.
What I have written so far applies equally to all the Southern States.
The miserable fortunes of each individual State from the time of the
passing of the Reconstruction Acts have next to be followed. I will
endeavour to be brief, but no study of the negro question in the United
States can, as has been said, be perfect, or even comprehensible,
without some allusion to the terrible penalty that was exacted from a
brave but vanquished people in and after 1867. The States were one and
all Democratic. By June, 1868, eight out of the eleven were represented
in both branches of Congress. Of the representatives, all but two were
Republicans; of the Senators, not one was a Democrat; and one-half of
the whole were Northerners, who had been elected by means such as Mr.
Lincoln, in 1862, had declared to be disgraceful and outrageous. In
1871, when all the States had been reconstructed, the South was
represented at Washington by seventy Republicans and only fifteen
Democrats.
RECONSTRUCTION IN ALABAMA.
In Alabama, as elsewhere, a working and fairly satisfactory Government
had been summarily overthrown by the Reconstruction Acts. It now made
way for a Republican Government dominated by negroes, most of whom could
neither read nor express an intelligent opinion on any current topic.
The negroes almost to a man were Republican, and so violent was
unreasoning party feeling among them that a few blacks who were
Democrats were expelled from their churches. There was a negro majority
in the Convention which was elected in 1867 to frame a new Constitution;
and, although it was required that for the ratification of the
Constitution a majority of the registered electors of the State should
vote, the new Constitution was ratified by Congress, in defiance of the
fact that the necessary majority had not voted. Under the new
Constitution began an era of Republican control of an avowedly
Democratic State, with twenty-six negroes in the House and one in the
Senate. During this period legislators, as one of their number is
reported to have said, “sold their votes for prices that would have
disgraced a negro in the time of slavery.” Money was obtained for public
works, but never legitimately expended, and the only people to profit
were the Northern “carpet-baggers” and the Southern negroes, many of
whom were not even taxpayers. A state of strife and ill-feeling was
sedulously kept up between the races, and jobbery and corruption were
universal and unveiled. After the elections of 1872, so outrageous were
the frauds on the part of the managers that both Democrats and
Republicans claimed the victory, and for a season there were rival
Legislatures in existence. The Democrats, however, submitted, in
presence of United States’ troops.
All kinds of most incompetent men were appointed to judicial positions.
For example, the first judge of the criminal court at Selma was one
Corbin, an old Virginian, who had never practised law. Its first clerk
was Roderick Thomas, a coloured man, who until after his manumission was
wholly without education. When Corbin left the Bench, Thomas succeeded
him, and another coloured man, as ignorant as Thomas, succeeded to the
position of clerk. Here is an extract, illustrative of the character of
Corbin, from that eccentric judge’s charge to the grand jury on July
27th, 1874:—
“Time was, and not very distantly, gentlemen, when this charge was
done up and delivered in grand old style: when grand old judges, robed
in costly black silk gowns and coiffured with huge old periwigs,
swelling out their august personages, were escorted into the
Court-rooms by obsequious sheriffs, bearing high before them and with
stately step their blazoned insignia of offices.... Fair ladies and
courtly old dames of pinguid proportions, in rich and rustling silk
brocades, flocked to grace the Court-room with their enchanting
presence and to hear the august, gowned, and periwigged old judges
ventilate their classic literature and their cultivated oratory in the
grandiloquent old charge.”
Corbin quarrelled with his party, which got rid of him. His
characteristic comment was that the Republicans were “a parcel of pigs;
as soon as one got an ear of corn the others took after him to get it
away.”
Such appointments as his were some of the fruits of ignorant negro
dominion in Alabama. They exasperated the Democrats, who, in spite of
much that is not creditable to them, are, and ever since the war have
been, the most respectable party in the State. In less than seven years
this negro domination rendered the State bankrupt and the population
furious. The elections of 1874 were, in consequence, attended by much
regretable fraud and violence, and, by some means, a Democratic majority
was obtained. It has kept itself in office ever since; it has remodelled
the Constitution; it has brought back economy and, I believe, honesty in
the administration of the public funds; it has largely reduced the State
indebtedness, and it has wholly restored the public credit. It may have
gained and preserved its object by discreditable means, but it has not
abused its power, and to-day, save for the black shadow of the Race
Question, Alabama flourishes.
RECONSTRUCTION IN NORTH CAROLINA.
North Carolina fared much as did Alabama. Under the Reconstruction Acts
and Amendment XIV. her most intelligent voters were proscribed, and
power fell into the hands of plunderers and adventurers. The result of
the voting for the Constitutional Convention in 1867 was that one
hundred and ten Republicans and only ten Democrats were returned by a
notoriously Democratic State; and the new Constitution of 1868
introduced an era of despotism and fraud. The negroes were permitted to
vote before they were legally entitled to the suffrage, and in the new
Senate there were thirty-eight Republicans and twelve Democrats, while
in the House there were eighty Republicans and forty Democrats. Several
of the negro members of the Legislature were unable to read. At every
opportunity these men robbed the State and trifled with its credit.
There was open corruption and universal bribery. There was formed a
political “ring,” which demanded, and generally received, 10 per cent.
on all appropriations passed by the Legislature. Lavish entertainments
were given and paid for out of public money. “A regular bar was
established in the Capitol, and it was said that, with somewhat less
publicity, some of its rooms were devoted to the purposes of
prostitution. Decency fled abashed; the spectacle of coarse, ignorant
negroes sitting at table, drinking champagne and smoking Havannah
cigars, was not uncommon.
“I cannot refrain,” continues Mr. Vance, “from telling a story which I
have heard of one, old ‘Cuffy,’ who was a member of that body, and a
shining light in the movement of progress—one who, in the language of
Mr. Hoar, had his ‘face turned towards the morning light.’ A friend,
going to see him one night at his rooms, found him sitting at a table,
by the dim light of a tallow dip, laboriously counting a pile of money,
and chuckling to himself. ‘Why,’ said his visitor, ‘what amuses you so,
Uncle Cuffy?’ ‘Well, boss,’ he replied, grinning from ear to ear, ‘I’se
been sold in my life ’leven times, an’, fo’ de Lord, dis is de fust time
I eber got de money.’”
The boldness of the robbers of the State was extraordinary. On one
occasion they obtained authority for an issue of bonds to the amount of
nearly £3,000,000 sterling, for the construction of a railway. These
bonds were all issued, but not so much as a single yard of the line was
ever laid down. Yet the people submitted patiently, until what was known
as the Schoffner Act was passed. This, under the pretence of suppressing
internal disorders, authorised the Governor, at his discretion, to
declare any county in a state of insurrection, to proclaim martial law,
and to try accused persons by drumhead court-martial. It also authorised
the raising of two regiments of troops, one of which was composed of
negroes, and the other of which was made up of white desperadoes, under
the command of the infamous Kirk. The proceedings under this Act were of
such a terrorising nature that the whole country took alarm. Many
Republicans, black and white, joined the Democrats; at the elections of
1870, after a shorter reconstruction period than fell to the lot of many
other States, the Democrats successfully reasserted themselves, and
North Carolina was redeemed. She has not since recovered her financial
position, but she bids fair to do so.
RECONSTRUCTION IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
So cruelly did South Carolina suffer during the era of reconstruction,
and so completely was she abased, that before the period of her
sufferings ended she became known as the “Prostrate State.” Her best
white citizens being disfranchised, she could not make her real voice
heard, and, in 1867, the election of delegates to the Convention for the
framing of a new constitution for her resulted in the return of
sixty-three negroes or coloured people and but thirty-four whites. The
latter were, almost without exception, either Northern adventurers or
Southern renegades; the former were, as a body, as ignorant as it is
possible to conceive. In 1868 the constitution which had been drawn up
by this strange Convention was adopted, chiefly upon the strength of the
votes of the negroes who were not then legally enfranchised, but who,
nevertheless, were encouraged by the Republican managers to go to the
polls.
Under the new constitution a General Assembly was elected. It included
seventy-two whites and eighty-five coloured men or negroes, and of the
total number one hundred and thirty-six were Republicans and only
twenty-one Democrats. All this happened in spite of the fact that
Amendment XV. to the United States Constitution, the amendment which
conferred the franchise upon the negro, was not ratified until March 30,
1870. General R. K. Scott, of Ohio, an ex-officer of the Freedmen’s
Bureau, was chosen Governor, and, almost immediately, the black
majority, assisted by the white Republican carpet-baggers, began to
tyrannise over the white Democrats, and to exploit the State in their
own private interests.
An Act passed in 1869 abolished the long-established rule of evidence
that all men shall be considered innocent until proved guilty, and
expressly directed that if the person whose rights under the Act were
alleged to have been denied happened to be coloured, then the burden of
proof would be on the defendant; so that any person or corporation named
in the Act, if simply accused by a person of colour, was thereby to be
presumed to be guilty, and was liable to be subjected to heavy penalties
upon this mere accusation, without a particle of proof by the plaintiff
or any other witness.
As for the extravagance of the new rulers, it was unlimited. When they
first met in legislative assembly, in 1868, they used the same building
which the whites had occupied before them, and they furnished it
inexpensively. But as soon as they realised their power, they exhibited
their luxurious tastes, and furnished anew the legislative halls in the
State House. For clocks that had cost 8s. 6d. they substituted clocks
that cost £120; for spittoons that had cost 1s. 8d. they substituted
spittoons that cost £1 14s.; for benches that had cost 16s. 6d. they
substituted crimson sofas that cost £40; for chairs that had cost 4s.
2d. they substituted crimson plush gothic chairs that cost £12; for
desks that had cost £2 they substituted desks that cost £35; and for
looking-glasses that had cost 16s. 6d. they substituted mirrors that
cost £120. The furnishing of the hall of the House of Representatives of
this impoverished State cost £19,000. The same hall has recently been
very nicely refurnished for £612. At least forty bed-rooms were
furnished at the public expense, some of them three times over. A
restaurant was also maintained in one of the committee rooms of the
Capitol at Columbia, and there officials and their friends and relatives
helped themselves, without stint, to food, liquors, and cigars, at the
cost of the taxpayer. For six years this restaurant was kept open every
day from eight o’clock on one morning until three o’clock on the next.
In a single session the restaurant swallowed up £25,000.
Nor was this by any means all. In 1873 Mr. J. S. Pike, late United
States Minister to Holland, a Republican, and originally a staunch
Abolitionist, wrote a little book[4] on the situation in South Carolina.
His testimony cannot be challenged. He, at least, was no Southern
Democrat, full of hatred to “niggers,” and to all the works of the
North; and the picture that he painted is one which shows corruption,
extravagance, and legislative wickedness such as never prevailed even in
Hayti in its worst days. Describing “A Black Parliament,” he says:—
Footnote 4:
“The Prostrate State.”
“Here, then, is the outcome, the ripe, perfected fruit of the boasted
civilisation of the South after 200 years of experience. A white
community that had gradually risen from small beginnings till it grew
into wealth, culture, and refinement, and became accomplished in all
the arts of civilisation; that successfully asserted its resistance to
a foreign tyranny by deeds of conspicuous valour; that achieved
liberty and independence through the fire and tempest of civil war,
and illustrated itself in the councils of the nation by orators and
statesmen worthy of any age or nation—such a community is then reduced
to this. It lies prostrate in the dust, ruled over by this strange
conglomerate, gathered from the ranks of its own servile
population.... In the place of this old aristocratic society stands
the rude form of the most ignorant democracy that mankind ever saw
invested with the functions of government. It is the dregs of the
population habited in the robes of their intelligent predecessors, and
asserting over them the rule of ignorance and corruption through the
inexorable machinery of a majority of numbers. It is barbarism
overwhelming civilisation by physical force.... We will enter the
House of Representatives. Here sit 124 members; of these twenty-three
are white men, representing the remains of the old civilisation....
These twenty-three white men are but the observers, the enforced
auditors, of the dull and clumsy imitation of a deliberative body,
whose appearance in their present capacity is at once a wonder and a
shame to modern civilisation.... The Speaker is black, the clerk is
black, the door-keepers are black, the little pages are black, the
Chairman of the Ways and Means is black, and the chaplain is
coal-black. At some of the desks sit coloured men whose types it would
be hard to find outside of Congo; whose costumes, visages, attitudes,
and expressions only befit the forecastle of a buccaneer.”
Such were the rulers of a State that then contained over 300,000 white
men and women.
In 1869 an exclusively coloured militia was organised, and, by the end
of 1870, 96,000 men were enrolled in it. To fourteen regiments of these
men arms and ammunition were issued before the re-election of General
Scott in 1870; they officially attended political meetings and were paid
for their services there, and they were confessedly enrolled and used
for political purposes. An armed constabulary was maintained for the
same objects. On June 25, 1870, J. W. Anderson, a deputy-constable,
reported to his chief:— “We can carry the county (York) if we get
constables enough, by encouraging the militia, and frightening the poor
white men. I am going into the campaign for Scott.” And on July 8, 1870,
Joseph Crews, a deputy-constable, reported from Laurens county:—“We are
going to have a hard campaign up here, and we must have more constables.
I will carry the election here with the militia if the constables will
work with me. I am giving out ammunition all the time. Tell Scott he is
all right here now.” Again, testifying before a legislative committee in
1877, J. B. Hubbard, the Chief Constable, said:—
“It was understood that by arming the coloured militia and keeping
some of the most influential officers under pay, a full vote would be
brought out for the Republicans, and the Democracy, or many of the
weak-kneed Democrats, intimidated. At the time the militia was
organised, there was, comparatively speaking, but little lawlessness.
The militia, being organised and armed, caused an increase of crime
and bloodshed in most of the counties, in proportion to their numbers
and the number of arms and amount of ammunition furnished them.”
Governor Scott spent £75,000 of public money in the advancement of his
candidature, and his majority of 30,000 votes was due entirely to
terrorism and bribery. In 1871 it was discovered that the Financial
Board had illegally issued several millions of State bonds, and there
was a movement for the impeachment of Scott, who was a member of the
Board. To save himself Scott issued three warrants upon the Armed Force
Fund, leaving the amounts blank, and gave them to two of his political
associates. The warrants were afterwards filled up for £9,729, and the
money was used to bribe members of the Legislature, the result being
that the Governor escaped. In the meantime, so outrageous was the waste
of public money, and so unabashed the general corruption, that several
outbreaks occurred. These were suppressed by a suspension in certain
counties of the writ of _habeas corpus_; but there is no doubt that they
represented chiefly the efforts of honest citizens to protect themselves
when they found that the Government did not protect them.
Mr. Franklin J. Moses, jun., succeeded General Scott as Governor, in
1872; and under him corruption grew more rampant than ever. Writing soon
after that person had assumed office, Mr. J. S. Pike said:—
“The whole of the late Administration ... was a morass of rottenness,
and the present Administration was born of the corruptions of that....
There seems to be no hope, therefore, that the villainies of the past
will be speedily uncovered. The present Governor was Speaker of the
last House, and he is credited with having issued during his term of
office over $400,000 (£80,000) of pay certificates, which are still
unredeemed and for which there is no appropriation, but which must be
saddled on the taxpayers sooner or later.... Taxation is not in the
least diminished; and nearly $2,000,000 per annum are raised for State
expenses where $400,000 formerly sufficed.... The new Governor has the
reputation of spending $30,000 to $40,000 a year on a salary of
$3,500; but his financial operations are taken as a matter of course,
and only referred to with a slight shrug of the shoulders.... The
total amount of the stationery bill of the House for the twenty years
preceding 1861 averaged $400 (£80) per annum. Last year it was $16,000
(£3,200).... It is bad enough to have the decency and intelligence and
property of the State subjected to the domination of its ignorant
black pauper multitude, but it becomes unendurable when to that
ignorance the worst vices are superadded.”
Moses’s rule was far worse than Scott’s. There was more waste, more
corruption, and more lawlessness. In 1874 a committee was appointed to
represent the state of affairs to the President; but Moses and his
fellows learnt betimes of this intention, and, having misappropriated
£500 of public money for the purpose, were able to checkmate the move.
It is impossible here to go into details of the various legislative and
political scandals of the period. So venal was Moses, and so notoriously
did he sell his power, that, more than once, judges announced from the
bench their unwillingness to put the people to the expense and trouble
of convicting criminals for the Governor to pardon.
Governor D. H. Chamberlain, a well-meaning and honest Republican,
succeeded this miscreant in 1874; yet he proved too weak to control his
party. Owing to the action of a remnant of Scott’s negro militia, a
bloody riot occurred in Edgefield county in January, 1875; and in his
treatment of this event, as well as in his attempts to lessen the public
expenditure, Mr. Chamberlain showed that he was animated by the best
desires; but in 1875 his efforts to ensure the purity and integrity of
the Bench were circumvented by a conspiracy among his followers; and
among the judges then chosen was the infamous ex-Governor Moses. Mr.
Chamberlain refused to commission him, and the man never served. The
circumstances of his choice, however, aroused the country, and
determined the people to oust the Republicans. At the elections of 1876
they chose as their Governor General Wade Hampton, and put Democrats and
white men into all official and representative positions. In this
election there were fraud and violence on both sides; but, while the
Democrats were fighting for their liberty, and almost for their lives,
the Republicans were fighting mainly for office alone. And the victors
have not, upon the whole, abused their victory. They have introduced
administrative economy; they have restored the credit of their State;
they have cared for education and general progress; and they have
brought back a fair measure of peace and a large one of prosperity.
And here I should add one word more concerning Moses. After his fall
from power he became a criminal of the vulgarest character. In 1881 he
was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for fraud to the amount of
$25; in 1884 he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for
swindling; in 1885 he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for
fraud to the amount of $34; and in the same year he was sent to prison
for three years for five other fraudulent transactions. After his
release he was arrested for stealing overcoats from the hall of a New
York house. He was apparently an incorrigible scoundrel first and last.
In 1877 a committee was appointed by the Legislature of South Carolina
to inquire into and report upon the scandals of the period from 1867 to
1876. I cannot resist the temptation of making a few extracts from the
report:—
“If the simple statement was made that Senators and Members of the
House were furnished with everything they desired, from swaddling
clothes and cradle to the coffin of the undertaker, from brogans to
chignons, from finest extracts to best wines and liquors, and that all
was paid for by the State, it would create a smile of doubt and
derision; but when we make the statement, and prove it by several
witnesses and by vouchers found in the offices of the Clerks of the
Senate and House, all must, with sorrow, admit the truthfulness of the
report.
“A. O. Jones, Clerk of the House, testifies that supplies were
furnished under the head of ‘legislative expenses,’ ‘sundries,’ and
‘stationery,’ and included refreshments for committee rooms,
groceries, clocks, horses, carriages, dry goods, furniture of every
description, and miscellaneous articles of merchandise for the
personal use of the members.
“It is shown that on March 4, 1872, Solomon furnished the Senate with
$1,631 worth of wines and liquors, and on the 7th day of the same
month with $1,852 75c. worth.
“Whilst fraud, bribery, and corruption were rife in every department
of the State Government, nothing equalled the infamy attending the
management of public printing.... From 1868 to 1876 the sums paid for
public printing amounted to $1,326,589 (£265,318)—a sum largely in
excess of the cost of public printing from the establishment of the
State Government up to 1868.... The public printing in this State cost
$450,000 (£90,000) in one year, and exceeded the cost of like work in
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, and New York by $122,932
(£24,588).”
The Committee gives a list of the names of twenty-two Senators and
Representatives who received sums varying from £10 to £1,000 under what
was called the “division and silence arrangement,” and it also gives a
list of those who were bribed to vote for these enormous appropriations.
Governor Moses received £4,000, Mr. Cardozo (treasurer) received £2,500,
and so on. It is not surprising that under so iniquitous a system the
State printing bill, which, during the seventy-eight years ending 1868
had been but £121,800, mounted up in the eight years (1868–76) to
£265,318. During the negro-Republican era of reconstruction South
Carolina’s monthly printing bill averaged £11,133; during General Wade
Hampton’s administration it averaged £103.
RECONSTRUCTION IN GEORGIA.
In Georgia the reconstruction period was likewise full of fraud and
corruption. In one short session the pay and mileage allowances of
members and officers of the General Assembly amounted to $979,055, or
£195,811, and there were no fewer than one hundred and four clerks, or
nearly one clerk to every two members. Between 1868 and 1870 the State
debt increased from $5,827,000 to $18,183,000, and the State bonds
became almost unmarketable, while all public works either fell to ruin
or were “run” by, and mainly for the benefit of, unscrupulous
adventurers of the worst type. During his term of three years Governor
Bullock, the Reconstruction Governor, pardoned three hundred and
forty-six offenders against the law, some of whom actually received
pardon before trial. Indeed, seven pardons before trial were granted to
one man, who pleaded them to seven separate indictments. The elections
of December, 1870, put an end to this. The Democratic victory was
overwhelming, and, before the Deputies of the people could confront him,
Bullock had resigned office and fled the State. Since that moment
prosperity has revived.
RECONSTRUCTION IN FLORIDA.
In Florida, the first Reconstruction Governor, Harrison Reed, very
nearly doubled the State expenditure during his four years of office.
Railway and legislative scandals were common. From Governor downwards
every official seemed to be equally corrupt and equally devoid of
patriotism. On one occasion an Act of the Legislature was forged; and,
armed with it, the Governor claimed, but failed to obtain, some
agricultural land scrip that was in the hands of the Treasury at
Washington. The ballot-boxes were tampered with, and the election
returns falsified. In the meantime the State Treasury was often so empty
that even telegraph charges could not be paid. The second Reconstruction
Governor, O. B. Hart, who assumed office in 1873, realised the
deplorable condition of affairs, but proved powerless to effect reforms.
People were kidnapped, really that they might be unable to vote, but
professedly in order that they might appear as witnesses in distant
courts of justice. A similar process was, on at least one occasion,
applied to members of the State Senate, two of whom were arrested and
carried to Jacksonville, in order that they might not imperil by their
votes the nefarious schemes of their Republican colleagues. The
elections of 1876 placed the Democrats in power and introduced a new and
more reputable era.
RECONSTRUCTION IN VIRGINIA.
During the reconstruction period Virginia’s sufferings were less painful
and considerably briefer than were those of most of the other old slave
States with which I am dealing. Such misfortunes as she experienced were
attributable, nevertheless, to causes exactly the same as those which
brought South Carolina to the lowest depths of misery and degradation.
In Virginia, as elsewhere, the reconstruction laws disfranchised the
majority of the best native whites and handed over the country to the
tender mercies of ignorant blacks, prompted by unscrupulous
carpet-baggers. Yet in Virginia the process known as reconstruction
seems to have been singularly uncalled for save as a purely party
measure. It was not needed for the protection of the negroes. Professor
Alexander Johnston, in the “Cyclopædia of Political Science,” calls
attention to the conspicuous equity of the Virginia statute, made after
the war but before reconstruction, for the regulation of contracts
between blacks and whites. Reconstruction was needed only for the
preservation of Republican power. It ended in 1870, but while it lasted
it had a very bad effect upon all the institutions of the State, and
especially upon the judiciary. Says Mr. Robert Stiles:—“The writer has
appeared in a circuit court of Virginia before a bench upon which sat a
so-called Judge, who had the day before been a clerk in a village
grocery store, and who was not better fitted for the dignity and duty
devolved upon him than the average grocery clerk would be.”
RECONSTRUCTION IN MISSISSIPPI.
In Mississippi the period was much longer and much more severe and
stormy. It was Mr. John Q. Adams, of Massachusetts, who, describing the
treatment during this time of the vanquished and resigned Southerners,
said that the Northerners scorned the protests of the ex-Confederates,
“repelled their aid, insulted their misery, and inflicted on them an
abasement which they felt to be intolerable in posting over them their
slaves of yesterday to secure their pledge of submission to the
Constitution of the United States.” The South, therefore, was by no
means alone in feeling that she was aggrieved.
In Mississippi, as in other States, a Convention met after the passing
of the Reconstruction Acts to draw up a new State Constitution. The
Convention was of the usual “black and tan” complexion, and in the
qualities of ignorance, corruption, and depravity was almost all that
the imagination can conceive. “It was,” says Mr. Ethelbert Barksdale, “a
fool’s paradise for the negroes, who undertook to perform what they were
incapable of doing; and, as to their mercenary white leaders, the stream
of purpose which ran through all their actions was plunder and revenge.
Not one of the authors and abettors of the plan was actuated by a higher
motive than party success. Not one of them believed that it would
promote the restoration of the Union to substitute the rule of knaves
and negroes for the State Governments which they had overthrown. They
knew the depravity of the white renegades whom they had commissioned to
do this work, and they knew, to employ the language of a Northern
statesman and Union soldier, that ‘in the whole historic period of the
world the negro race had never established or maintained a Government
for themselves.’”
The Convention was very deliberate in its action. Its members lived in a
state of luxury unknown to their previous habits. They voted themselves
$10 (£2) a day, and paid their innumerable hangers-on correspondingly
high wages; and, although the body cost about £100,000 sterling while it
sat, it would have cost far more but for the inexorable attitude of the
commanding general, who, in the interregnum, was practically dictator.
The Constitution which the Convention drew up was promptly rejected at
the polls, and was only ratified in a modified form upon the holding of
a second election in 1869. As originally devised it would have excluded
half the intelligent white population from all offices, and would even
have actually and permanently disfranchised anyone who during the war
had charitably contributed to the relief of sick and suffering
Confederate soldiers.
The first election under the Amended Constitution returned a Legislature
four-fifths composed of negroes and carpet-baggers, and the negroes had
a majority. The immediate consequences were that corruption began to
regulate every public and legislative transaction, and that the State
started on a career which led it with daily accelerating speed in the
direction of ruin. Within six years 6,400,000 acres of land were
adjudged forfeited for non-payment of the taxes which were necessary to
support the extravagance and folly of the ruling clique. Thenceforward,
until, at least, these lands were redeemed, taxation fell with
correspondingly increased weight upon the rest of the unfortunate State.
And so matters went from bad to worse until, after years of tyranny,
waste, and extravagance on the part of their governors, the whites could
submit no longer.
From a taxpayers’ petition addressed to the Legislature on January 4th,
1875, I extract the following:—
“To show the extraordinary and rapid increase of taxation imposed on
this impoverished people, these particulars are cited:—In 1869 the
State levy was 10 cents on the hundred dollars of assessed value of
lands. For the year 1871 it was four times as great. For 1872 it was
four times as great. For the year 1873 it was eight and a half times
as great. For the year 1874 it was fourteen times as great.... In many
counties the increase in the county levies has been still greater.”
At this crisis Mr. George E. Harris, a Republican ex-Attorney-General
and member of Congress, wrote:—“The people are in a state of
exasperation, and in their poverty and desperation they are in arms
against the burden of taxes levied and collected on their property.” But
the petition was laughed at by those who were profiting by the misery of
the citizens. The people, therefore, roused themselves, and, partially,
it may be, by violence and fraud, but wholly in self-defence, rescued
the State at the elections of 1875 from its abasement. Since then there
has been no important break in the steady financial, agricultural,
educational, and industrial improvement of Mississippi.
RECONSTRUCTION IN LOUISIANA.
Louisiana, alas, fared much worse than Mississippi—worse, in fact, than
any of the old slave States; for even in South Carolina the agony was
not so bloody.
The Constitutional Convention of 1867 was elected on a registration list
which had been so manipulated as to show only 45,218 white voters to
84,436 black ones; and at the legislative elections of 1868 the
successful candidates were chiefly negroes. Indeed, in the Senate there
were but about half a dozen whites.
To the summit of this mass of ignorance and corruption a creature named
Henry C. Warmoth at once climbed. By arts which can best be compared
with those of the political schemer in a burlesque, he had already
ingratiated himself with the negroes; and he had little difficulty in
inducing his _protégés_ to make him the first Reconstruction Governor of
Louisiana.
Warmoth originally went to Louisiana in the Federal Army, from which he
is said to have been dismissed for good cause. He should appear in
history as one of the very worst of the carpet-baggers; yet he was a man
of, in some respects, a remarkable character. From his earliest
assumption of power he took measures not merely to render himself
supreme, but also to render himself irremovable. He was “inaugurated” in
July, 1868. Democratic members of the Legislature were, with very few
exceptions, excluded by the operation of a test oath imposed by the
majority; all election machinery and the disposal of nearly all
important offices were entrusted to the hands and sole will of the
Governor; and a Board of Registration was appointed, the object of which
was to ensure that elections should result favourably to the party in
power. Warmoth, whenever he made a considerable appointment, adopted the
precaution of simultaneously obtaining from the appointee a resignation
in blank; so that rebellious or troublesome officials could always be
summarily got rid of by the simple act on the part of the Governor of
filling up the blank forms. So complete in time became Warmoth’s system
that, says Mr. B. J. Sage, “a practically unanimous people could not
have driven the Republicans out, save by a popular uprising.”
Of the members of the Legislature only ten among the dominant party were
taxpayers; and, consequently, the House was not in the slightest degree
of sympathy with the people, who soon began to be burdened with a
taxation such as had before been undreamt of. Corruption and bribery
reigned supreme, “and the knaves, to avoid any possible danger, refused
to pass any bribery law, so that it was no crime to bribe a public
official.” To assist himself and his fellows in controlling elections,
Warmoth raised what was in fact, though not in name, a standing army,
and subsequently a small fleet; and he caused the establishment in all
parishes of Republican newspaper organs, to the conductors of which was
given a monopoly of printing the laws and public advertisements. The
State expenditure rose to five times its normal level; the cost of the
short session of 1871 amounted to £1,230 sterling per legislator; and
the State debt, of course, increased rapidly and alarmingly, until
proportionately to the population it became, within only a year and a
half, very much larger than that of any State in the Union. Bonds were
issued for all kinds of fraudulent objects—many at a rate as high as 8
per cent.; and all sorts of valuable privileges and franchises were
given away to the favourites of the men in power. In fact, the State was
plundered wholesale and in every direction. It is calculated that
Louisiana was the loser in these years of the equivalent of about
£24,000,000 sterling, or of more than half the total estimated wealth of
the State.
Warmoth’s own share of the spoils was large, but its exact amount can
never be ascertained. Up to the time of his accession the average
printing expenses of the State had been about $37,000 (£7,400 a year).
During the first two years and a half of Warmoth’s rule the New Orleans
_Republican_, in which he was the principal shareholder, received
$1,140,881 (£228,170) for public printing. Warmoth also took upon
himself the appointment of the judges—from whom he exacted the usual
blank resignations; and thus with an army, a navy, a press, a bench, a
legislature, and election managers all securely, as he believed,
tethered to his chariot, he was absolute dictator.
He found his justification in the elections of 1870, which went exactly
as he willed them to go. Not even Lopez in Paraguay was more powerful
than Warmoth in Louisiana. “But,” says Mr. Sage, “over the spoils arose
the inevitable quarrel, and the two factions that formed went heartily
into their only good work, which was to acquaint Louisiana and the world
with their rascalities and infamy, and make manifest the gross wrong of
Congressional reconstruction.” For over two years the Warmothites and
the anti-Warmothites fought, often in arms, frequently with much
bloodshed; and in 1872–73 the State was in a condition of disgraceful
anarchy, which was in nowise ended by the substitution of Pinchback, the
Lieutenant Governor, for Warmoth, and by the impeachment of the latter;
for by that time another Governor, who claimed to have been properly
elected, was in the field in the person of Mr. W. P. Kellogg. Kellogg
was sustained by United States troops; but, although there were many
riots and much bloodshed on his behalf, he was never popularly
recognised. In one riot alone sixty-three persons were killed.
Kellogg was worse even than Warmoth had been. In 1874 the whites
organised themselves for their protection under the style of the White
League. Their attempt to arm themselves led to a bloody battle at New
Orleans, in which forty people were killed and 100 wounded. Immediately
afterwards Kellogg was overthrown; but he was re-seated by the Federal
forces. At the 1874 elections the Democratic whites again swept the
State; but Warmoth’s cunningly devised Returning Board, which still
existed, neutralised the results by summarily rejecting nearly half the
successful opposition candidates, and by thus manufacturing another
Republican Legislature. Indeed, a number of Democratic members of the
House were actually arrested by Federal troops. A Congressional
Committee, it is true, afterwards recognised the illegality of these
acts, and reinstated a majority of the Democrats, but the policy of the
committee did not reconcile the State with Kellogg and with his numerous
other enormities. For example, the Governor illegally arrested between
500 and 600 persons at various times, generally on blank warrants; and
in every instance in which any of these cases were investigated in Court
the charges were dismissed.
The struggle of 1874 had not satisfied Kellogg that there was a point
beyond which he should not go in his requests for Federal assistance. He
determined to make further requests, with a view to securely intrenching
his party during the elections of 1876. Once more, however, and in spite
of wholesale bribery on the other side, the Democrats swept the State;
and again the results were neutralised by the operations of the old
infamous Returning Board. Renewed anarchy, with two Governors and two
Governments, followed. One Government—that of Packard, the Republican
leader—was unable, nevertheless, to exercise even a vestige of authority
outside the State House, which, crowded with people, lay in a state of
siege, in spite of the fact that small-pox had broken out there. Packard
waited for the active Federal support which had never been refused to
Kellogg, but he waited in vain; and when, after months of hesitation,
the President withdrew the National troops, Packard and his Government
collapsed. Governor Nicholls, a Democrat, then assumed full authority;
and from that day Louisiana has formed part of the “solid” Democratic
South.
And here let it not be forgotten that public gambling and public
lotteries owed their establishment in Louisiana to Warmoth. The gambling
has since been abolished; the Louisiana lottery, owing to its having
been granted a twenty-five years’ charter, still exists to remind the
world of the evil methods of the period of reconstruction. Warmoth
himself said of the Legislature which he had caused to be elected in
1870:—“There is but one honest man in it,” and to a delegation he
cynically remarked, “Corruption is the fashion; I do not pretend to be
honest, but only as honest as anybody in politics.”
I might also trace the history of reconstruction in Tennessee, in West
Virginia, in Missouri, and in Arkansas; but I am chiefly confining my
attention to those Southern States which constitute the “Black Belt”—the
district, that is, throughout which blacks and whites are nearly evenly
balanced, and in which there are particular commonwealths containing
more blacks than whites. Moreover, on this branch of the subject I have
written enough, I believe, to show reason, if not to show excuse, for
the political feeling which occupies the first place in the heart of
every Southern white man.
That feeling is, by itself, a political creed stronger than the creed of
Republican or of Democrat; and it may be thus formulated. You have freed
our slaves, and, far from regretting, we rejoice in what you have done.
Without properly consulting us, you have given those ex-slaves the
suffrage and civil rights. There, we think, you have greatly erred.
While we will admit that some negroes and coloured people are fit to
exercise the suffrage, we are of opinion that the vast majority of them,
owing as well to natural lack of mental ballast as to ignorance, are
incapable of exercising the suffrage to their own best welfare, to the
benefit of the white people among whom they live, and to the general
advantage of the nation. Apart from this opinion of ours, and quite
regardless of the question whether that opinion be sound or not, we are
steadfastly determined never again to submit to any form, direct or
indirect, of negro government. We have experienced a form of such
government during the Reconstruction Era. In those days the chief
sufferers were ourselves, and the chief gainers were, not the negroes,
who, like machines, registered the desires of their patrons, but the
unscrupulous whites who exploited the negroes. We intend, therefore, to
risk no more of that kind of thing. Here and there the negroes may be
more numerous than we whites. It must make no difference. The white must
rule, no matter at what cost. You shall never again, while we exist,
compel us to relinquish that determination. Our view does not, it may
be, accord with the principles of your Amendment XV., but it accords
with our ideas of the _minimum_ of social comfort and security, and we
intend steadfastly to adhere to it, even if adherence should cost us
blood and treasure and much more that we hold dear. You Northerners have
never known any form of negro domination, and have never been in danger
of it. Indeed, you know little about the negro. We have to live with
him, and we are familiar with his failings as well as with his virtues.
Our knowledge tells us that it would be suicidal folly to entrust
ourselves, our families, and our fortunes to his political discretion.
You think otherwise; but do not, we pray you, ever attempt to make us
practise in all their fulness your very humane theories. We would rather
die at once. Congress, we know, once passed a Civil Rights Bill, which
directed “that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States
should be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places of amusement,
subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and
applicable alike to citizens of every race and colour, regardless of any
previous condition of servitude.” That was very well in theory, but the
Act has been held by the United States Supreme Court to be
unconstitutional, and, in any case, you must never ask us to accept it.
There are occasions when we cannot admit that whites and blacks are
equal.
The above position is one upon which the whites of the South are, as I
convinced myself during my stay and inquiries here, practically
unanimous. It is a position of danger, for it is a position of covert,
if not open, hostility to the spirit of laws of the Union. A strict and
rigid enforcement of those laws, supposing that it could be attempted,
would, there is no doubt, create an exceedingly grave crisis. On the
other hand, there is, or may be, danger in the fact that the negro as a
citizen does not get all that to which he is legally entitled. How he is
deprived of very much that the law affects to give him will be the
subject of the next chapter.
CHAPTER III.
THE EX-SLAVE AS HE IS.
The main outlines of the rights of the negro in the United States are
laid down in Amendments XIII., XIV., and XV. to the American
Constitution. Says Amendment XIII., “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.” Says Amendment XIV., “All persons born
or naturalised 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
process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.” And, says Amendment XV., “The right of the
citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States, or any State, on account of race, colour, or previous
condition of servitude.” Such is roughly the American charter of the
black and coloured man’s liberties.
The Civil Rights Bill, passed by Congress in 1875, went further, and, as
I have said, declared that “All persons within the jurisdiction of the
United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privilege of inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theatres, and other places of amusement,
subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and
applicable alike to citizens of every race and colour, regardless of any
previous condition of servitude.” But this measure was held by the
United States Supreme Court to be unconstitutional; and I only again
cite its first section here in order to show, in all completeness, what
the negro in America wants and is struggling for, and what his most
enthusiastic friends in the North would give him if they had it in their
power to give.
It is because he is not given these rights, and because some of the
rights which are given to him in law are withheld from him in practice,
that the Race Question is to-day one of towering importance in America.
If the American white were able to frankly make up his mind to accept
the negro as in all respects his political and social equal, the whole
question would vanish, and the two races might, in course of time,
become one. But the American white, it is absolutely certain, will never
adopt this solution of the difficulty. He will not frankly accept the
negro as his equal at the polls, in society, in the court of law, or in
the school. He holds that the negro is physically and intellectually
inferior in the scale of humanity; and he points, with a gesture that
forbids argument, to the differences that exist between the Caucasian
and the Caucasian’s “brother in black.”
Am I, he asks, to admit my equality with a being who more nearly
approaches the quadrumana than does any other member of the human
family; with a being whose arms are, on an average, two inches longer
than mine? Am I to admit my equality with a being whose facial angle is
about 70 deg., while mine is about 82 deg.? Am I to admit my equality
with a being the average weight of whose brain is ten ounces less than
that of people of my own family? Is it a matter of insignificance that
he is black while I am white; that his eyes have a yellowish sclerotic
coat; that his nose is short, depressed, and dilated; that he has high
and prominent cheek-bones; that his cranium is much thicker than mine;
that he has a low instep and a “lark heel”; that his head is covered not
with hair but with wool of nearly flat section; that his skin is thicker
than mine, and that, it is velvety and emits a characteristic odour;
that his frame, owing to structural peculiarities, is not as erect as
mine; or that the cranial sutures of the negro close up much earlier
than those of the white man?
[Illustration: FACIAL ANGLES OF THE WHITE AND NEGRO RACES.]
These points of difference, and many more, are ever before the eye and
in the mind of the American white in the South. I am not concerned to
say whether or not the white man pays exaggerated attention to them. I
can only declare that, influenced, rightly or wrongly, by his
observations and his prejudices, the white Southerner has impregnably
determined that, in spite of anything that Constitutional Amendments and
State legislation may hint to the contrary, the negro on American soil
occupies an inferior position, and that he must never be allowed to
trespass beyond it.
I have already incidentally mentioned that the illegal repression of the
black is openly defended by Americans who, in the ordinary affairs of
life, take rank as men of honour. Mr. George William Curtis, writing in
_Harper’s Weekly_ in June, 1887, said:—
“What is the Southern question? It is essentially one of the gravest
and most vital that can concern any community, for it is substantially
the question whether where the coloured vote is largely in the
majority, and is cast all together, the community shall be placed
under the government of its most ignorant class, recently emancipated
from a dehumanising slavery, and led by unscrupulous chiefs. The
pitiless cruelty of slavery was not a good school for the exercise of
political supremacy in an otherwise highly civilised community, and
the situation in some parts of the Southern States is one which, could
it be reproduced in the Northern States, would not be tolerated.
Relief would be sought and found under law or over law, and that is
what is done in such communities in the Southern States. There is
plainly a deprivation of rights conferred by law. But would any humane
and intelligent Republican say that the power of the United States
should be employed to compel submission to an endless rule like that
of Moses in South Carolina?”
And the Boston _Herald_, one of the most respectable of Northern
newspapers, candidly tells its New England readers that if they lived in
the South they would entertain the same views about the negroes as the
Southern whites do. It explains very thoroughly the race prejudice,
which is prevalent with all white races, and particularly with the
Anglo-Saxon, and which has kept the Anglo-Saxon race pure and has
preserved its institutions, civilisation, and free government. Says the
_Herald_ on this subject:—
“The treatment accorded to coloured races by white men, especially
representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race, has never been of a kind to
call forth commendations, and yet it may be said that this almost
universal display of inhumanity indicates that it is a necessary
feature of race development. Our Western countrymen believe that the
only good Indian is a dead Indian; our Southern countrymen believe
that the negro is a person who cannot be allowed political and social
equality, but must be kept in an inferior condition. We in the North,
who have nothing to fear from Indians and with whom the negro is an
exception, raise our voices in protest at such barbarity. And yet our
forefathers, who were, perhaps, quite as conscientious persons as we
are, did not hesitate to undertake a war of extermination against the
Indians, and they even held views concerning the negro quite different
from those which we entertain.
“In fact, human nature is such that the chances are altogether in
favour of the supposition that, if the people of New England could be
transported to the North-Western States and Territories, and our
fellow-citizens of those districts brought back to New England, we
should soon have those who now entertain philanthropic views
concerning the Indians crying out for their speedy extermination,
while those who now regard them as obstacles to civilisation, to be
brushed out of the way as soon as possible, would come, looking at
them from a perspective of 2,000 miles, to regard them as men and
brothers, deserving of kind and equitable treatment. We dare say that
the removal of the white people of the North to the Southern States
and the transfer of the Southern people to the north of Mason and
Dixon’s line would be attended with the same reversal of opinions
respecting the negro question—that is, the manner in which these race
problems are regarded is largely a matter of geographical location.”
The Atlanta _Constitution_ thus excuses the attitude of the whites. Is
there, it asks, a State in the North in which if, as in Mississippi,
181,000 negro voters, of whom 145,000 are unable to read or write, were
to-day settled, the white people would be or could be divided under any
pretence or by any power? Is there a Northern State in which, although,
as in Mississippi, there were only 121,000 white voters to oppose them,
this host of black illiterates could capture and maintain the control of
affairs under any pretext or by any power? Could this be done in
Indiana, or in Ohio, and especially could it be done if, as in
Mississippi, the hideous and sickening pages of the carpet-bag era, by
showing what these people did do when the whites were united against
them, gave appalling suggestions of what they would do if the whites
were divided? Iowa has about the voting population of Georgia, say
320,000. If 130,000 of these voters were negroes, of whom 100,000 were
illiterate (to say no worse), is there any sane man who believes, or any
fair man who will assert, that the white people of Iowa would not so
unite as to hold control of their affairs, and remain so united, in all
despite? Would any political ambition, or could any external force, so
divide the whites as to make it possible for a considerable minority of
their number, by deluding the ignorant and bribing the corrupt of the
negroes, to hold the reins of government?
Nor can it be denied that, in practice, many of the most negrophil
Northerners have as little as possible to do with the black, and,
indeed, systematically treat him as an inferior. A Republican Congress
twenty years ago forced negro suffrage upon the South, and at the same
time established it in the District of Columbia. Six years’ experience
of it in Columbia was sufficient, and to get rid of it a Republican
Congress obliterated suffrage altogether there, amid the hearty amens of
Republican property holders in Washington. There are three Senators now
in Congress—Messrs. Edmunds and Morrill, of Vermont, and Mr. Sherman, of
Ohio—who twenty years ago assisted might and main to burden the South
with negro suffrage. These three are among the foremost in advocating
Southern fairness towards the negro. Indeed, Mr. Sherman is the author
of a proposition in this direction which for stringency goes far ahead
of anything previously suggested. Yet all three of these Senators, who
are large property holders in Washington, voted to disestablish negro
suffrage in Washington fifteen years ago, and not one of them would for
one moment listen to any suggestion to revive it.
The attitude of the Southern white towards the negro is, nevertheless,
not exactly an unkind one. It is rather that of a magisterial guardian.
Within certain limits, the negro is no longer “kept down.” Far from
seeking to condemn him to ignorance and stagnation, the white man
contributes, and contributes generously, to the negro’s mental,
physical, and moral advancement. He freely provides his ex-slave with
facilities for education, with medical care in seasons of sickness, and
with opportunities for religious instruction. Indeed, in these
directions, he does for the black man a great many good deeds which the
black man never dreams of trying to do for himself. But this is, I
think, mainly because the white systematically regards the black as a
child. And in this the white is certainly justified. No one who has
associated much with the negro race can have failed to have remarked
that in the natural time of childhood the negro is apparently as
vivacious and as intelligent as the white. With the approach of puberty,
however, the two races begin to betray marked intellectual divergence.
The white steadily progresses in intelligence; the black stops short; so
that, a few years afterwards, the latter is by comparison dull, stupid,
and indolent, though still frivolous, affectionate, good-natured, and
mischievous. I speak, of course, of the average negro, and more
especially of the full-blooded one. There are exceptions, but they are
few. As a rule the grown negro, even if he have received a better
education than the majority of his fellows, is in mind always a child.
The uneducated grown negro is invariably of this characteristic nature;
and he is often charmingly simple and devoid of evil. But, on the other
hand, he is quite as often full of the worst vices and passions. Into
this, however, I will not go at present, my immediate purpose being
rather to show how the negro is treated by his white fellow-citizens
than to indicate the effect that is being produced upon the South by the
existence in it of an enormous, and in many localities an overwhelming,
negro population.
According to law, the American negro has at the polls exactly the same
rights and privileges as the American white man. But the concession was
made to the negro without the full and free consent of the Southern
white, and in consequence the Southern white has always grudged it, and
has very rarely allowed it to be fully exercised. There was a time, as I
have endeavoured to show, when the Southern white was prevented by
_force majeure_ from greatly interfering with the negro’s action at the
ballot-boxes; but since the days of Reconstruction the Southern white
man has been supreme in his own States, and his will has ever been that
the negro shall not be a significant factor in politics. At first the
white enforced his will with the rifle and the revolver. In many places
the negro could not approach the ballot-box without risking his life,
and so he stayed away. There were “rifle clubs,” and, in Texas and
Virginia, there was the Ku-Klux Klan, an organisation of whites of good
position who were determined, no matter how much blood it might cost, to
make the coloured people “behave themselves.” Then followed the less
violent but not less reprehensible recourse to “tissue-ballots.” “Let
the negroes vote if they will,” was the word; “we will stultify their
action by fraud, which is safer than force.” And so it happened that, as
in South Carolina, although the negro majority trooped to the polls and
voted Republican to a man, the returning officers found that, almost
without exception, the men who were elected were Democrats.
The infamous trick was easily managed. In America the voter is, in most
places, required to register, and to produce his registration
certificate upon recording his vote. He votes by depositing in the
ballot-box a printed ticket, or ballot. This ticket simply bears the
names of the favoured candidates for vacant offices, and, although it
now has to be of certain prescribed dimensions and colour, its form used
to be very much dependent upon the tastes and idiosyncrasies of the
party leaders who supplied it to the electors. In the “tissue-ballot”
days fraudulent party leaders caused it to be printed upon the very
thinnest of tissue-paper, so that the thickness of, say, twenty-five
tissue-tickets did not much exceed that of an ordinary piece of
writing-paper. These tickets were entrusted to unscrupulous voters of
the right political complexion. The ballots, before being deposited, had
to be folded, but only lightly folded; and thus, when an expert
fraudulent voter folded his twenty-five tissue-tickets together and gave
them a gentle flip as he dropped them into the box, the papers flew open
and apart, and at once assumed a comparatively innocent appearance. Upon
the close of the poll the ballots were counted and their number was
compared with that of the registered electors who had voted at that
booth. There was found to be a large excess of ballots; whereupon all
the papers were returned to the box, and an election manager, in
accordance with precedent, undertook the duty of withdrawing sufficient
ballots to make the remainder tally with the number of voters who had
polled. If, as was generally the case, the manager was fraudulent, he
took care to draw out only thick tickets. If, as may have sometimes
happened, he was honest, he took the tickets as they came, thick and
thin indifferently. But in either event the party that used
“tissue-ballots” naturally gained an immense advantage. If the
negroes—against whom almost exclusively this device was
employed—suspected and protested, revolvers were exhibited by the other
side.
Such a revelation as this may appear incredible to British readers, but
it by no means exhausts the villainies of American politics as they are
displayed at the polls, even at this day; and Americans themselves seem
to accept such things as matters of course. Mr. John James Ingalls, one
of the United States Senators for Kansas, excited no great surprise or
repulsion when he recently declared, “The purification of politics is an
iridescent dream; the Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no place in a
political campaign.” Mr. Ingalls is a Republican. Republicans, however,
it is but fair to say, are not monopolists of fraud. A normally
respectable Southern newspaper, the Charleston _News and Courier_,
during the last campaign, coolly gave to its readers the following
conspicuously printed piece of advice:—“Go to the polls to-day. Vote
early, vote often, vote straight.” (November 4, 1890.) And I am bound to
admit that the counsel was acted upon. But of that anon.
Concurrently with the use of “tissue-ballots,” the practices of
“counting in” and “counting out” were resorted to, or, in other words,
false returns were made. Again, the registration certificates of the
ignorant and often careless coloured voters were frequently stolen or
purchased for ridiculous sums by whites. The regular price used to be
fifty cents, or a pint of whisky.
Another favourite device was, and still is, deception. The majority of
coloured voters cannot read, and since, at most American elections,
there are several “tickets” to be voted for—as, for example, a State
ticket, a county or municipal ticket, and a Federal ticket—there is
generally plenty of opportunity for Sambo to go wrong. With the
assistance of a learned friend, he selects such tickets as he may, in
his political wisdom, desire to deposit. He also assures himself as to
the relative positions of the various ballot-boxes in the booth. Then,
with the State ticket between his forefinger and thumb, the county
ticket between his forefinger and second finger, and the Federal ticket
between his second and third fingers, and in the happy belief that the
State box is on the extreme right, the county box in the middle, and the
Federal box on the extreme left, he enters the booth to do his civic
duty. In the meantime the managers inside have deliberately changed the
position of the boxes. They are legally bound to indicate each box if
they be asked to do so; but, even if they comply with the letter of the
requirement, Sambo inevitably gets his papers confused, and ends by
depositing them wrongly, and so spoils his vote. In practice, the
managers, as often as not, either do not indicate the boxes or indicate
them wrongly. They are all labelled, but when Sambo is illiterate the
labels are meaningless to him.
In a speech delivered on July 30th, 1888, Governor John P. Richardson,
of South Carolina, openly and frankly defended this practice. Said he:—
“The great problem which God has given us to solve is not yet solved.
We have now the rule of a minority of four hundred thousand over a
majority of six hundred thousand. No army at Austerlitz, Waterloo, or
Gettysburg could ever be wielded like that mass of six hundred
thousand people. The only thing which stands to-day between us and
their rule is a flimsy statute—the _eight-box law_—which depends for
its effectiveness upon the unity of the white people.”
In a speech delivered a few days later Governor Richardson again
declared:—
“But there is one thing more which the Democracy has to do, and that
is to solve the problem of how a minority of four hundred thousand
people shall rule for the advancement of the State and the people at
large. There are to-day many people who think that the eight-box law
could be disposed of, but I tell you that on it depends the salvation
of the State. It amounts to an educational qualification for suffrage.
None of us can forget the election trials which took place in this
city, when a native South Carolinian was the prosecutor against his
own people. But if he was the Cicero, we had yet the Demosthenes to
meet him, and the gifted Youmans arose, and we saved our comrades by
the skin of their teeth. Be careful, my friends, of the eight-box law.
Some have said that we could control by simple Anglo-Saxon manhood,
but this is only a beautiful theory, and would be dangerous in
practice. I have an abiding faith in the onward progress of humanity,
and I believe it is the eternal law of God that this land shall be
controlled by the Anglo-Saxon race.”
The _eight-box law_ is the statute which provides a separate box for
each ticket, township, county, State, Congressional, Electoral, &c.
Every voter must approach these boxes alone, and no one, unless asked,
is allowed to tell him where a particular ticket belongs. If he cannot
read he cannot, without assistance, distribute his tickets, and, by the
law, all that are put into the wrong box are void.
Senator Eustis, of Louisiana, at about the same time publicly asserted
that the whites of Louisiana, in spite of the law, would rule by might,
and as for the rest of the country it was none of Louisiana’s business.
The vulgar devices of making voters drunk and of temporarily restraining
their personal liberty are not wholly neglected; but these are
troublesome methods, and the easier ones are found by experience to have
all the hoped-for effect. Indeed, in many districts, the negro now seems
to recognise that his vote, should he deposit it, will not be allowed to
count, and he therefore stays at home. In other districts he votes
still; but the whole business is a sad farce. And of this I have some
personal knowledge.
On November 4th, 1890, I was present at a voting place at Mount
Pleasant in South Carolina. The whites were voting for Tillman, the
Farmers’ Alliance candidate, for Governor. A small dissentient body of
whites and the whole body of negroes were voting for Haskell, the
Democratic-Republican Coalition candidate. The district is a very
black one, one of the blackest in the State, and its vote was much
counted upon by the Haskell party. Overnight, therefore, the
Tillmanites tried, but in vain, to destroy the booth; and on the day
of the election they adopted a modification of the old “tissue-ballot”
trick, using, however, ordinary instead of tissue-ballots. Two hundred
and forty-four persons voted at this particular booth. When one of the
boxes was opened it was found to contain a largely excessive number of
ballots; the exact number was, if I recollect rightly, 477. The
surplus 233 papers were cast out by the managers, some of whom were
shrewdly suspected of being parties to the conspiracy, and the result
of the poll in that precinct was decided by the verdict of the
remainder. Nor was this the only villainy that was perpetrated on that
day in the neighbourhood. In an adjoining precinct a Tillman champion
named Gaillard seized and destroyed the registration books, thus
rendering the polling impossible in default of duplicate books.
Ballot-boxes, too, are sometimes destroyed or made away with. Indeed,
there is no conceivable scoundrelism that is not, or has not been,
practised in the South to neutralise the negro vote.
From what I have written it will be clear that the extension of the
suffrage to the coloured race in the Southern States by no means ensures
the representation of the black man. The situation is a very disgraceful
one for the Southern whites; but even the better class of Southern
politicians with whom I have conversed upon the subject tacitly, if not
expressly, defend, as with one voice, the iniquitous system. “We
cannot,” they say, “be ruled by the negroes; we must protect ourselves.
It is very lamentable; but what is the alternative?”
It is hard to suggest a practicable one, for the fatal and irretrievable
mistake of bestowing the suffrage upon every male citizen of full age
has already been made. That mistake is recognised as such not only by
the Democrats, not only by the whites. Senator Ingalls, whom I have
already spoken of as a Republican, wrote in the _North American Review_,
in April, 1886:—“Had the Republican party been courageous or intelligent
enough to have attempted the reconstruction of the South through its
brains rather than through its numbers, the most lamentable chapter in
our history might have been unwritten.” And Mr. A. M. E. Church, an
intelligent coloured clergyman of Vicksburg, wrote, in the same
year:—“We will say ... that the mass of negroes would do themselves and
their country more good if the ballot were out of their reach.”
Congress has it in its power to limit the suffrage; but at this time of
day it will not exercise that power, which, by the way, ought never to
have been taken out of the hands of individual States. The situation in
Maine, where nearly all the people are white and educated, is not like
the situation in Mississippi, where more than half the people are black
and ignorant. But Congress forgot that fact, and Amendment XV. took from
the States, practically for ever, a wholesome power, which, under sec.
2, Art. 1, of the original Constitution, they had up to that moment been
at liberty to exercise. The repeal of Amendment XV., however, would not
settle, and would, in my humble opinion, scarcely assist, the solution
of the race question. The cause of difficulty lies far deeper; and this,
I think, will appear when I shall have considered the Southern negro in
his social and general, as well as in his political, position, and when
I shall have given some examples of the force of race prejudice in
America.
Throughout the South the social position of the man in whose veins negro
blood courses is unalterably fixed at birth. The child may grow to be
wise, to be wealthy, to be entrusted even with the responsibilities of
office, but he always bears with him the visible marks of his origin,
and those marks condemn him to remain for ever at the bottom of the
social ladder. To incur this condemnation he need not be by any means
black. A quarter, an eighth, nay, a sixteenth of African blood, is
sufficient to deprive him of all chances of social equality with the
white man. For the being with the hated taint there is positively no
social mercy. A white man may be ignorant, vicious, and poor. For him,
in spite of all, the door is ever kept open. But the black, or coloured
man, no matter what his personal merits may be, is ruthlessly shut out.
The white absolutely declines to associate with him on equal terms. A
line has been drawn; and he who, from either side, crosses that line has
to pay the penalty. If it be the negro who dares to cross, cruelty and
violence chase him promptly back again, or kill him for his temerity. If
it be the white, ostracism is the recognised penalty. And it is not only
the uneducated and the easily prejudiced who have drawn the line thus
sharply. Speaking in 1858, Abraham Lincoln said:—
“I am not, and never have been, in favour of bringing about, in any
form, the social and political equality of the white and the black
races. There is a physical difference which forbids them from living
together on terms of social and political equality. And, inasmuch as
they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be a
position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am
in favour of having the superior position assigned to the whites.”
Mr. Froude, in “The English in the West Indies,” writes:—
“One does not grudge the black man his property, his freedom, his
opportunity of advancing himself; one would wish him as free and
prosperous as the fates and his own exertions can make him, with more
and more means of raising himself to the white man’s level. But left
to himself, and without the white man to lead him, he can never reach
it.... We have a population to deal with the majority of whom are an
inferior race. Inferior, I am obliged to call them, because as yet
they have shown no capacity to rise above the condition of their
ancestors, except under European laws, European education, and
European authority to keep them from war upon one another.... Give
them independence, and in a few generations they will peel off such
civilisation as they have as easily and as willingly as their coats
and trousers.”
And, says Professor E. W. Gilliam, to whose writings on the subject I
have already made some allusion:—
“The blacks have been, and must continue to be, a distinct and alien
race; the fusion of races is the resultant from social equality and
intermarriage, and the barrier to this is here insurmountable. The
human species presents three grand varieties, marked off by
colour—white, yellow, and black. One at the first, in origin and
colour, the race multiplied and spread, and separate sections, settled
in different latitudes, took on—under climatic conditions acting with
abnormal force in that early and impressionable period of the race’s
age—took on, we say, different hues, which, as the race grew and
hardened, crystallised into permanent characteristics. Social affinity
exists among the families of these three groups. The groups themselves
stand rigidly apart. The Irish, German, French, &c., who come to these
shores readily intermarry among themselves and with the native
population. Within a generation or two the sharpness of national
feature disappears, and the issue is the American, whose mixed blood
is the country’s foremost hope. It cannot be—a fusion like this
between blacks and whites. Account for it as we may, the antipathy is
a palpable fact which no one fails to recognise—an antipathy not less
strong among the Northern than among the Southern whites. However the
former may, on the score of matters political, profess themselves
special friends to the blacks, the question of intermarriage and
social equality, when brought to practical test, they will not touch
with the end of the little finger. Whether it be that the blacks,
because of their former condition of servitude, are regarded as a
permanently degraded class; whether it be that the whites, from their
historic eminence, are possessed with a consciousness of superiority
which spurns alliance—the fact that fusion is impossible no one in his
senses can deny.”
Professor Gilliam wrote from a Southern standpoint, but, says Judge
Albion W. Tourgée: “Looking at the subject from a standpoint
diametrically opposed in every respect both to the intellectual bias and
to the political inclination of Professor Gilliam, we are compelled to
endorse his views in this respect almost without the least
modification.” And in another page of his admirable and informing
volume, “An Appeal to Cæsar,” Mr. Tourgée remarks, “When the freedman
began to establish his own home circle, to build for himself a household
about his own hearth, however humble, the distance between the whites
and blacks, though in fact very greatly diminished, seemed to have been
as greatly increased.”
My own impression, as derived from somewhat wide observation, is that,
since the emancipation, the distance has really as well as apparently
increased, and that it is still increasing. Whites and blacks have less
in common than of yore; there is less chance than there ever was of
their working together peacefully for good; and racial antagonism,
nourished by both sides, grows daily. There are many signs, too, of this
growing antagonism. On the side of the negro there is a desire to be
what the white man is, and to do what the white man does—to elevate
himself to the same level of privileges, with or without the
pre-requisite education and fitness for the elevation. He argues blindly
that the legal right confers the needful fitness. The law opens
positions to him, and he is a voter. Why then should he not vote himself
and his friends into the positions? And education by no means tends to
decrease the friction, seeing that the white man is as prejudiced
against an educated negro as against an ignorant one. On the contrary,
it adds to it. When the uneducated black thinks himself the equal of the
white, the educated black cannot be expected to submit resignedly to be
regarded as the white’s inferior. Yet he is obliged to affect the
resignation which he cannot feel. He must suppress his real sentiments,
or he must risk physical maltreatment.
His social position cannot be properly understood without the aid of
illustrations. I will therefore give a few, which are taken at hazard
from some hundreds of examples that I might cite.
But, as an introduction to this branch of the subject, I must first
quote a passage from Mr. George W. Cable’s recent book, “The Silent
South,” a volume which is inspired from beginning to end with
love—perhaps unwise love—for the negro, and with a desire to do all that
lies in the writer’s power to abate the prevalent race friction. Mr.
Cable asks:—
“Are the freedman’s liberties suffering any real abridgment? The
answer is easy. The letter of the laws, with a few exceptions,
recognises him as entitled to every right of an American citizen; and
to some it may seem unimportant that there is scarcely one public
relation of life in the South where he 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 race and
colour. One of the marvels of future history will be that it was
counted a small matter by a majority of our nation for six millions of
people within it, made by its own decree a component part of it, to be
subjected to a system of oppression so rank that nothing could make it
seem small except the fact that they had already been ground under it
for a century and a half. Examine it. It proffers to the freedman a
certain security of life and property, and then holds the respect of
the community, that dearest of earthly boons, beyond his attainment.
It gives him certain guarantees against thieves and robbers, and then
holds him under the unearned contumely of the mass of good men and
women. It acknowledges in constitutions and statutes his title to an
American’s freedom and aspirations, and then in daily practice heaps
upon him in every public place the most odious distinctions, without
giving ear to the humblest plea concerning mental or moral character.
It spurns his ambition, tramples upon his languishing self-respect,
and indignantly refuses to let him either buy with money, or earn by
any excellence of inner life or outward behaviour, the most momentary
immunity from these public indignities even for his wife and
daughters.”
In America it is a matter of notoriety that there is no exaggeration
here, nor is the race feeling confined solely to the South. To the
British reader the following cases in point will, I believe, prove that
there is no exaggeration:—
“Supposing the Courts of our Southern States, while changing no laws
requiring the impanelling of jurymen without distinction as to race,
&c., should suddenly begin to draw their thousands of jurymen all
black, and well-nigh everyone of them counting not only himself, but
all his race, better than any white man. Assuming that their average
of intelligence and morals should be not below that of jurymen as now
drawn, would a white man, for all that, choose to be tried in one of
those Courts? Would he suspect nothing? Could one persuade him that
his chances of even justice were all they should be, or all they would
be, were the Court not evading the law in order to sustain an
outrageous distinction against him because of the accident of his
birth? Yet, only read white man for black man, and black man for white
man, and that—I speak as an eye-witness—has been the practice for
years, and is still so to-day; an actual emasculation, in the case of
six million people, both as plaintiff and defendant, of the right of
trial by jury.”—MR. G. W. CABLE.
“The negro children of the city are usually the aggressors when
trouble occurs between them and white children. Both colours are too
ready for a row, but coloured parents are too ready to teach their
youngsters that white people are their natural enemies. We daily see
negro boys trying all their ingenuity to get a fight out of the white
boys when the latter try to avoid a row, and this is peculiarly true
when there are two or three young negroes to one white. Negro girls
are apt to be extremely insolent, not only to whites of their own age,
but to ladies. In the matter of collisions between school-boys, that
may best be left to the police. The negro girls who push white women
and girls off the walks can be cured of that practice by the use of a
horsewhip; and we advise white fathers and husbands to use the whip.
It’s a great corrective.”—Chattanooga _Times_.
This advocacy of the summary horsewhipping of girls is very significant
of the brutal attitude of the Southern white towards the negro.
“Between two and three o’clock an excursion train, composed entirely
of coloured people, arrived at Gouldsboro depôt from Bâton Rouge. A
large number of coloured men and women were near the depôt waiting for
the train, which was due at eleven o’clock. As the train neared the
depôt, one of the excursionists attempted to get off and fell to the
ground. Some unknown person made a personal remark, when the negro
drew a pistol and fired four or five shots in rapid succession, one of
which struck a white man named William Miller, brother of one of the
Gretna police, in the nose and lodged itself in the back of his neck.
Then the shooting became general, some four or five hundred shots
being fired in less than fifteen minutes. The stories of the blacks
and whites as to the origin of the trouble differ widely. The negroes
say that a large body of armed white men were awaiting the train’s
arrival, and that about ten minutes after it stopped they opened fire
on the negroes who were going to the street car. The whites say that
only half a dozen white men were concerned in the affair, and that the
negroes, before the train came to a halt, fired two shots at a white
boy named Burmester. Billy Miller was then shot by one of the white
men, and then the fight became general.”—Associated Press Telegram
from New Orleans, September 1st, 1889.
“It is impossible for the negro to get any justice at the hands of
Southern magistrates or juries. A man who resides in Augusta, Ga.—a
Democrat and a hater of the negro—admits that the whites’ maltreatment
of the blacks must one day recoil upon their own heads. ‘Why,’ said he
to me to-day, ‘you can’t convict a white man of the murder of a negro,
nor even of a white friend of the negro. Just before I left home a
negro was found one morning in the street, with his body riddled with
bullets. I was pretty certain that his death was due to a certain gang
of roughs, whose leader is under obligation to me for keeping him out
of the penitentiary. Meeting him I said, “Pat, who killed that
nigger?” “Oh, some of the boys,” said Pat, with a grin. “What did they
do it for?” I asked. “Oh, because he was a nigger,” said Pat. “And,”
he continued, “he was the best nigger in town. Why, he would even take
off his hat to me.”’ I thought he must be a good negro, indeed, who
would take off his hat to that creature, and I walked away pondering
upon what must be the outcome of it all. It is my opinion that several
of the Southern States will have to be abandoned to the negroes if we
would avoid terrible consequences from the wrongs we are heaping on
them.”—Washington correspondence of the Pittsburg _Dispatch_, January
11th, 1890.
“They had an election down in Jackson, Miss., yesterday, and it was of
the usual kind. The regular press reports, with charming frankness,
state that everything was progressing quietly so long as the negroes
stayed away from the polls; but should the black men attempt to
exercise the right of suffrage there would be trouble.”—Philadelphia
_Evening Telegram_, January 7th, 1890.
A negro named William Black stole some trifling articles from the
house of a white man, one Jim Bennett, near Robins, South Carolina.
Bennett followed and caught the negro, and, assisted by Dave Ready,
Henry Sweat, and John Walker, tied the prisoner to a tree. Ready then
placed a gun to the negro’s temple and blew out the man’s brains.
Bennett, Walker, and Sweat were arrested as accessories in the first
degree, but were discharged by Justice Dunbar. Ready apparently
escaped.—Summarised from a Barnwell letter of January 11th, 1890, in
the Charleston _Budget_.
Two boys—Williams, a negro, and Robertson, a white—were playing
together near Waynesboro with a gun, which, being accidentally
discharged, killed Robertson. The negro boy was arrested, but was
taken from custody by a mob of white men, who tied him up and shot him
to death.—Summarised from a despatch from Augusta, Georgia, dated
October 24th, 1890, to the Charleston _News and Courier_.
“A Tennessee white man was hanged on Tuesday for the brutal murder of
his wife. The despatches tell us that he objected to going on the
gallows with three coloured men who were to be hanged at the same
time, and that the authorities so far respected his prejudices as to
swing off the negroes first.”—New York _Star_, January 7th, 1890.
“Some years ago a great revival was going on in one of the churches of
my own city. The evangelist was fervidly inviting all kinds of people
to come to the ‘anxious seat.’ Crowds of men, women, and children were
accepting the invitation. Tramps, drunkards, and beggars were among
the number. At last it was announced to the church officials that a
negro upon one of the back seats was ‘under conviction.’ Here was a
problem of serious import. The officials held a hurried and anxious
consultation, and it was finally decided that the negro might receive
the benefit of salvation in an inconspicuous pew. This case might
fairly be termed exceptional if it were not true that one of the
largest and most influential denominations in the land, having been
split in half by the question of slavery, remains in that condition
to-day solely on the question of colour caste.”—Rev. JOHN SNYDER, in
the _Forum_, October, 1889. (The denomination alluded to is the
American Presbyterian Church.)
“While the Republican whoopers at the North are bursting with
indignation at the fact that the negroes on Southern railroads are
provided with separate cars from those occupied by the whites, they
have not a word of protest against the fact that a daughter of a
Southern negro ex-Governor was ‘frozen’ out of the ball-room of the
Grand Union Hotel at Saratoga a few nights ago. The gathering in the
ball-room was not of persons specially invited, but was made up, as
such watering-place balls usually are, of the guests stopping in the
hotel. The young lady in question is beautiful and accomplished, and
above all moral reproach, and so slightly tinted with negro blood that
she would have passed muster among whites almost anywhere in the
matter of colour. In spite, however, of all the facts in her favour,
the single circumstance of race created, in a crowded assemblage in a
Northern State, a sentiment that immediately culminated in outward
expressions which at once convinced the unfortunate lady that she was
an object of most unfriendly observation on the part of the people
gathered there.”—New Orleans _Picayune_, August 30th, 1889.
“The report comes from South Carolina that a coloured man, unarmed and
defenceless, fell into an altercation with a white man of that State
named Gallman. Gallman slit the coloured man’s throat from ear to ear,
and drove to a neighbour’s house, where he procured a shot-gun, and
emptied the contents of one barrel into the wounded man. At a late
hour that night Mr. Gallman’s friends, hearing that the victim had not
died, although he was at death’s door, rode to where he lay, and
carried him to the nearest churchyard, where they riddled his body
with bullets.”—Boston _Advertiser_, June 2nd, 1889.
“A reporter of the New York _World_ on Saturday disguised himself as a
wealthy negro from Cuba, and went around to the various first class
hotels to secure accommodation for himself. That must have been a busy
day with the hotel people, for the clerks smilingly told him that
every room was engaged. Seeing that it would be impossible to secure a
room, he then tried to get something to eat. At most of the
restaurants the waiters would pay no attention to his orders, and the
cashiers with one accord assured him that the proprietor was out and
would not return until late. At the Hoffman House Café he was given
food, but was not served at the bar. At Delmonico’s he was assured
that they had nothing to eat. So it seems that the prejudice against
the negro is not confined entirely to the South.”—New York _World_,
June, 1888.
Last year Mr. Douglass, a mulatto, was appointed United States
Minister to Hayti, and was taken thither on board an American
man-of-war, the _Kearsage_. Another ship, the _Ossipee_, was first
ordered to convey him. It is alleged that her commander, being
unwilling to carry and associate with a coloured man, urged as an
excuse that his vessel was not fit for sea. The officers of the
_Kearsage_ refused to dine with the Minister. “The army officers are
in a state of glee over it, and so are the Navy officers on duty here.
All unite in saying that if any of the _Kearsage_ officers dine with
Douglass on the way to Hayti they will find themselves tabooed by
their brother officers thereafter.”—Summarised from the Washington
correspondence of the St. Louis _Republic_, October, 1889.
“We simply hate, as American citizens, to be told by our equals _de
jure_ ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.’ The blackest hands can
cook the food for prejudiced throats; the blackest, dirtiest arms can
hold the whitest, cleanest baby; the blackest, most illiterate man can
sit on the same seat, even with a lady, as a driver; but the angry
passions rise when a well-dressed, educated, refined negro pays his
own fare and seats himself quietly in a public conveyance.”—Orangeburg
_Plain Speaker_, a negro newspaper, December 4th, 1889.
“Two coloured men, respectable in appearance and well educated, the
one principal of, and the other a teacher in, a public school of the
city, entered a restaurant in Cincinnati the other day. They seated
themselves at a table, but no waiter went near them, and when they
finally asked to be served they were thrown out into the street. The
sole trouble was the fact that they were coloured.”—New York _Evening
Post_, December 31st, 1889.
“Social equality of whites and blacks is unheard of here, even in
‘black’ Republican circles. The whites don’t want it and the blacks
won’t have it. Any white person who advocates it here is quietly
ignored as an irredeemable crank, and the South can afford to keep
cool and follow Northern example regarding this deadest of dead
issues.”—New York _Herald_, November, 1889.
“Wednesday will be long remembered in Georgia as the day on which an
unparalleled number of violent crimes were committed. At Jessop a
bloody riot occurred; at Augusta there was a conflict approaching the
dimensions of a riot, accompanied by bloodshed. At Dainesville a very
worthy coloured man was, it appears, cruelly murdered; at Toombsboro
another negro was killed; and at Greenville a shooting affair
occurred.... The quarrel was in every instance between men of
different colour.”—Macon _Telegraph_, December 28th, 1889.
“A few days ago a negro minister of this city boarded the east-bound
passenger train on the E.T.V. and G. Railway, and took a seat in the
coach occupied by white passengers. Some of the passengers complained
to the conductor and brakemen, and expressed considerable
dissatisfaction that they were forced to ride alongside of a negro.
The railway officials informed the complainants that they were not
authorised to force the coloured passenger into the coach set apart
for the negroes, and they would lay themselves liable should they do
so. The white passengers then took the matter in their own hands, and
ordered the ebony-hued minister to take a seat in the next coach. He
positively refused to obey orders, whereupon the white men gave him a
sound flogging and forced him to a seat among his own colour and
equals. We learned yesterday that the vanquished preacher was unable
to fill his pulpit on account of the severe chastisement inflicted
upon him.”—Selma (Alabama) _Times_, quoted by MR. G. W. CABLE.
“There is terrible excitement here over the co-education of the races.
The Alton Board of Education has provided separate schools for
coloured children, but the negroes want their children to attend the
schools set apart for the whites. They had threatened and threatened
to force their way into the schools and put their children alongside
the whites, and flatly refused to permit their children to attend the
schoolhouses set apart for the negro children. These threats, however,
until to-day, were looked upon as idle and meaningless. This morning
the negroes took action in the matter. Scores of adult negroes,
accompanied by half a hundred black children, went to the high school
and demanded admission. Superintendent Powell is a mild-mannered man,
and offered no obstructions. The black children walked in and took
possession of all the desks they found unoccupied. The white pupils
protested, and began to pick up their books and make preparations to
leave. Some of the coloured boys grinned at the white girls, and as
soon as the negro men left the building the white pupils assaulted the
blacks. There was a hard fight for fifteen minutes, during which
books, inkstands, rulers, slates and hair filled the air. The whites
finally drove the blacks out of the room and chased them out of the
yard, and continued to fight in the street. The white girls urged
their champions on with encouraging shouts, and brought them munitions
of war when possible.”—General Press Telegram from Alton, Illinois,
January 11th, 1890.
“At Decatur, Ill., Wood Bros., purveyors of candles and ice-cream, had
no ice-cream to sell to the Rev. Edward Wilson. He was a negro. He now
arrests the purveyors by virtue of the Civil Rights Law, and ‘the case
will be hotly contested.’ Of course it will. And the jury will
discharge the confectioners. The black man will get no ice-cream. The
people of Decatur love the negro in the South, not in the North. The
Civil Rights Bill was prepared for the South, where a coloured man can
get all the ice-cream he may pay for. To apply Reconstruction to the
North—is not that oppressive? The same Northerner who will endure
arrest before he will sell ice-cream to a black man will tell you
confidently that the determination of the Southerners to prevent black
home rule is the vilest conspiracy of modern times.”—Chicago _Herald_,
September 6th, 1889.
“One hot night in September ... I was travelling by rail in the State
of Alabama. At rather late bedtime there came aboard the train a young
mother and her little daughter of three or four years. They were
neatly and tastefully dressed in cool, fresh muslins, and as the train
went on its way they sat together very still and quiet. At the next
station there came aboard a most melancholy and revolting company. In
filthy rags, with vile odours, and the clanking of shackles and
chains, nine penitentiary convicts chained to one chain, and ten more
chained to another, dragged laboriously into the compartment of the
car where in one corner sat this mother and child, and packed it full,
and the train moved on. The keeper of the convicts told me he should
take them in that car 200 miles that night. They were going to the
mines. My seat was not in that car, and I stayed in it but a moment.
It stank insufferably. I returned to my own place in the coach behind,
where there was, and had all the time been, plenty of room. But the
mother and child sat on in silence in that foul hole, the conductor
having distinctly refused them admission elsewhere because they were
of African blood, and not because the mother was, but because she was
not, engaged at the moment in menial service. Had the child been
white, and the mother not its natural but its hired guardian, she
could have sat anywhere in the train.”—MR. G. W. CABLE.
“During a day’s stay in Atlanta lately, the present writer saw many
things greatly to admire.... He feels constrained to ask whether it
must be that in the principal depôt of such a city the hopeless
excommunication of every person of African tincture from the civil
rewards of gentility must be advertised by three signs at the
entrances of three separate rooms, one for ‘Ladies,’ one for
‘Gentlemen,’ and the third a ‘Coloured Waiting-room?’ Visiting the
principal library of the city, he was eagerly assured, in response to
inquiry, that no person of colour would be allowed to draw out
books.”—MR. G. W. CABLE.
“Postmaster Lewis and Colonel A. E. Buck were hung in effigy in front
of the Court-house to-night, in the presence of probably 10,000
persons. This action was the result of Lewis appointing a negro to a
place in the Registry Department, where he would come in contact with
a white lady clerk.”—Letter from Atlanta, Georgia, of August 8th,
1889, to Charleston _News and Courier_.
“The Rev. J. Francis Robinson, a Baptist preacher of good character,
has been visiting in the City of Auburn, New York. The day after his
arrival he wished to get shaved, and went to a barber-shop, but was
refused attention. He went in succession to several other
barber-shops, but received the same treatment at each. The Rev. F. D.
Penny, pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Auburn, accompanied the
Rev. Mr. Robinson to a number of shops, and offered the proprietors a
dollar to shave his friend, but his co-operation was of no use. The
trouble was that the Rev. Mr. Robinson had a black skin, and, as one
of the barbers said, ‘I refused to shave him because it is against the
rules of the trade to shave a coloured man.’”—New York _Evening Post_,
August 6th, 1889.
“Deacon J. H. Brown, of the First African Baptist Church, of this
city, had quite an unpleasant experience at Baxley yesterday. He is on
his way, along with other coloured deacons and clergymen, to a
convention of the church at Indianapolis. Six of them entered the
white people’s coach, filled largely with ladies, and, despite the
repeated protests of the passengers, would not vacate their seats. One
passenger wired to Baxley over the signature of ‘Passenger,’ asking
for help to put the negroes out, and stating that he would make
himself known when the train arrived. When Baxley was reached a crowd
of men boarded the train and requested the negroes to leave. They
refused. This did not change their purpose, and force was then used.
In the fight that ensued two men were cut, but not very seriously. The
train pulled out quickly to prevent further disturbance, and a
physician at Lumber City was telegraphed for to meet the wounded men
there. He refused, but subsequently one was secured and the men cared
for. Brown was hurt about the head and face from blows inflicted by a
club.”—Savannah (Georgia) _Times_, September 10th, 1889.
“The colour line question has nearly caused a split in the Independent
Baptists’ Union. An organisation composed of Baptist ministers of
Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland is in session here. The Rev. H.
A. Braxton, a coloured member, objected to the use of the word
‘coloured’ in a report referring to work among his race. This
objection fired the Southern sentiment of some of the white brethren,
and a sharp discussion ensued. Preacher Braxton declared that he was
opposed to ecclesiastical bossism, and wanted the colour line buried.
Dr. A. C. Dickinson, editor of the _Religious Herald_, of Richmond,
asked: ‘Do you want us to treat you every way as if you were not
coloured?’ The Rev. Mr. Braxton replied: ‘Yes, we want to be treated
as men, and we want no special favours.’ The Rev. A. C. Dickinson
said: ‘Do you want us to bury the colour line? If so, where is it to
be buried—on the white side or on the black? The colour is there. God
put it there. Leaving out the word “coloured” won’t help it. Now, what
are you going to do about it? Do you intend to give up your convention
and your churches and join ours, or do you want us to give up ours and
join yours?’ Rev. Dr. J. W. M. Williams, one of the most prominent
Baptists in the South, said: “If you (the coloured people) don’t
intend to stop talking on this question, then, in the name of the
Lord, go by yourselves and talk all day on the question of colour. If
the coloured people see they can do their work better alone, let them
go and work by themselves.’”—General Press Telegram from Baltimore,
Maryland, October 18th, 1889.
“A delegation of citizens waited on Governor Gordon to-day, and asked
him to take action concerning the whipping of a number of negroes by
unknown white men at East Point, near Atlanta. The affair occurred
late last night. It was the outgrowth of the lynching of a negro boy
on Wednesday night for the usual crime. The negroes had a mass
meeting, and the citizens, becoming alarmed, sent for police from
Atlanta. The presence of the officers prevented further trouble, but
after they had gone a number of white men went to different cabins and
whipped the negroes, fourteen in all.”—Atlanta despatch of September
6, 1889, to Charleston _News and Courier._
A man named L. P. Smith was employed as a detective. He arrested one
Jackson, a negro, mistaking him for a murderer who was “wanted.”
Finding out his error, but desiring to secure the reward, he offered
to release Jackson if the latter would submit to have one of his ears
cut off, that ear bearing a mark similar to one on the ear of the
sought for murderer. Jackson agreed. Smith, uneasy as to what he had
done, then shot Jackson, who, however, lived long enough to make a
statement.—Summarised from a Birmingham (Alabama) despatch of
September, 1889.
The mutilated bodies of Rosmond Cormier, coloured, and his daughter
Rosalie were found in a cabin on the Abbeville Road, near Lafayette,
Louisiana. Cormier, who was sixty, had been previously whipped and
ordered by a band of “Regulators” to leave the district, but had not
complied. The “Regulators” returned, demanded admittance to the cabin,
were refused, and were fired at in self-defence by Cormier. They then
shot him and cut his daughter’s throat from ear to ear. On the same
night they very severely whipped two other negroes.—Summarised from a
New Orleans despatch of September 11th, 1889, to the Charleston _News
and Courier._
“In Fulton County, Georgia, a black boy of eighteen years was taken
from gaol and hanged for ‘assaulting’ a white girl, the assault
consisting of catching the child by the arms and running away when she
and her companion screamed. Then a pack of white ruffians, heavily
armed, went from one cabin to another in an alleged search for a
criminal, and barbarously whipped and maltreated inoffensive negroes,
who were powerless to defend themselves against shot-guns and
revolvers presented at their heads.”—_Greenville News_, September
10th, 1889.
“There are symptoms of a race war in Missouri, at Dexter.... The
people in that section have for years excluded all negroes from among
them. A short time ago a man named Williams settled on a farm there,
and engaged a dozen negroes to work for him. Fifty armed white men
waited upon him this week, and told him he must get rid of the
negroes. He said they might kill him first. The armed men returned to
town, where they are circulating a paper pledging the signers to stand
by the ‘Regulators.’”—Charleston _News and Courier_, September 14th,
1889.
“Robert Battey, a negro juror, was refused admission to the
dining-room at the Augusta Hotel yesterday. He was the only coloured
man on the jury, which was empanelled to try a criminal case in the
City Court, and when the hour of dinner arrived the case was of such
importance that Judge Eve ordered the jury to be kept together....
Upon arriving at the hotel Mr. B. S. Doolittle, the proprietor, who
is, by the way, a Northern man, refused Battey, the coloured juror,
admission to his dining-room, where a number of ladies and gentlemen
were seated at dinner. Mr. Doolittle offered to furnish the coloured
juror with his meal in another room, but Battey would not consent to
be isolated in that manner, and before he would go into the private
room he went home, where he enjoyed his usual meal in custody of an
officer. This attempted intrusion of a negro into the dining-hall of
an hotel called forth considerable comment, and Mr. Doolittle was
upheld in his refusal to serve Battey with dinner at the same table
with white people.”—Augusta (Georgia) despatch of October 4th, 1889,
to Charleston _News and Courier_
I have, perhaps, cited sufficient examples of white intolerance and
tyranny. These characteristics are, it will have been observed, not
exclusively confined to the South. I should add that, in several States,
what is known as miscegenation, or, to be plain, marriage between a
white and a black or coloured person, is illegal.
After reading what I have written and quoted, can any one fail to ask
himself these questions? Is there any doubt that there is a race problem
of infinite difficulty and danger awaiting, nay crying for, solution in
America? Is it not true that there is practically one law for the black
and another for the white in the South? Is it likely that the negro’s
civil rights will ever be respected by the Southern whites? Can
civilisation admit the claim of the South to be permitted to settle the
race question in its own way? Is it not the duty of the United States to
deal with the question? Is the position of the Southern black likely to
become more tolerable or less, under the existing system? I might insist
much more than I have done upon the negro’s unfortunate situation. I
might picture him, in all detail, as he is in the school, in the church,
and even in the graveyard—a being kept remorselessly apart from his
white fellows. But I am anxious not to be one-sided, and not to allow my
natural sympathy for the black man’s wrongs to render me blind to the
fact that the white man, too, has wrongs great and intolerable. What
these wrongs are I shall attempt to show when I deal with the position
of the Southern white. In the meanwhile I will conclude my present
division of the subject with a few notes on the sanitary, moral,
educational, and material position of the Southern negro of to-day.
As to his sanitary position I have, I regret to say, no very modern
statistics at my disposal. The latest that convey a fairly broad view of
the situation apply to the years 1883 and 1885; but there is no doubt
that things have very little changed since then. The death-rate, among
children under five years old, per 1,000 of the whole population, for
the year 1883 was—in Charleston, white 5·88, coloured 21·3; in Memphis,
white 3·75, coloured 13·91; in Nashville, white 5·65, coloured 12·44;
and in Savannah, white 7·59, coloured 18·01. The rate in 1885 was—in
Charleston, white 4·45, coloured 14·38; in Memphis, white 4·67, coloured
13·46; in Nashville, white 4·37, coloured 10·78; and in Savannah, white
4·23, coloured 13·70. Squalid dwellings, in filthy neighbourhoods,
impure air, dirty water, neglect of personal cleanliness, immorality,
extensive meat consumption without vegetable diet to match, and
gregarious and generally unsavoury habits, induce a black mortality
which, at least in the large centres, is enormous, and is particularly
noticeable under the heads of consumption, pneumonia, and scrofula.
Bearing upon this point, a paragraph from the New York _Tribune_, of
August 20th, 1889, deserves quotation:—
“As the result of extended observations, including thousands of cases,
thirty-six per cent. being negroes, and mulattoes, Dr. L. McLane
Tiffany, of Baltimore, finds some marked differences in the diseases
of whites and blacks. Thus, spinal caries is more frequently located
in the dorsal region of the negro, and a cured case of Pott’s disease
in the middleaged negro is very rare: dislocations are more frequent
in the white, as is also lateral curvature of the spine; keloid is
characteristically more frequent in the negro, likewise lipoma.
Although Dr. Tiffany has never seen an epithelioma of the lip or any
part of the face in a negro, osteo-sarcoma is often met with in the
race. In hospital cases, the negro bears operations better, as a rule,
than the white, but their reaction after accidents is not so good as
that of the latter. Dr. Tiffany concludes that surgical affections
pursue different courses in the white and coloured races under
identical hygienic surroundings; that surgical diseases involving the
lymphatic system, especially tubercular, are more fatal in negroes
than in whites; that congenital deformities are more rare in negroes
than in whites; and that surgical differences observed between negroes
and whites are due to racial peculiarities.”
Yet the excess of mortality among the coloured people, large though it
be, is more than counterbalanced by their superior fecundity. This is
very remarkable, seeing that in many cities where the whites outnumber
the blacks as two to one, the death-rate among the latter positively
exceeds that among the former. In Charleston, for example, the
death-rate in 1884 was for the whites 1 in 42, and for the coloured 1 in
22; and in 1883, for the whites 1 in 46, and for the coloured 1 in 21.
This is rendered the more striking by the fact that the poorer coloured
people in Charleston are supplied with medicines and medical attention
at the expense of the city. In 1884 no fewer than 17,950 coloured
patients were treated in the city hospital and in the different health
districts, as against only about one-third of that number of white
patients. In 1886 the Charleston death-rate was, per 1,000, for whites
20·65 and for coloured 49·01. In 1887, out of 41,000 whites in Atlanta,
Georgia, 608 died, while out of 22,000 coloured people 707 died. Again,
in the week ending March 9, 1889, the estimated population of New
Orleans was—whites, 184,500; coloured, 69,500; and the death-rate per
1,000 was—whites, 14·13; coloured, 30·03. And the story is much the same
everywhere. The negroes die like flies, and increase only because they
also breed like flies.
Their moral condition, as shown by criminal statistics and by the
testimony of competent observers, is equally unsatisfactory. Says the
Rev. Dr. Tucker, formerly of Jackson, Mississippi:—
“In all the country districts the removal of the restraints of
slavery, such as they were, has resulted in an open abandonment of
every semblance of morality and the loss almost of the idea of
marriage. Why, in one county of Mississippi, there were during twelve
months 300 marriage licences taken out in the county clerk’s office
for white people. According to the proportion of population, there
should have been in the same time 1,200 or more for negroes. There can
be no legal marriage of any sort in Mississippi without a licence.
There were actually taken out by coloured people just three!... Soon
after the war the Legislature passed an Act legalising the union of
all who were then living together, marrying them whether they wished
or not; and for years afterwards the courts were crowded with
applications for divorce from coloured people, which mostly had to be
granted, since there was ample cause for divorce under either the
Divine or the statute law. I know of whole neighbourhoods, including
hundreds of negro families, where there is not one single legally
married couple, or couple not married, who stay faithful to each other
beyond a few months, or a few years at most; often but a few weeks.
And if out of every 500 negro families one excepts a few dozen who are
legally married, this statement will hold true for millions of
coloured people. And these things I tell you to-night are but hints. I
cannot, I dare not, tell the full truth before a mixed audience.”
These words were originally spoken before the Episcopal Congress at
Richmond, Virginia, in 1882; they were subsequently published in a
pamphlet, and I am generally assured, and implicitly believe, that they
were true then and are true now. Even the negroes themselves dare not
deny them. One negro preacher published a pamphlet, in which he admitted
that—
“This speech reveals humiliating facts, so truthful, yet hard to
acknowledge. Not one of our social circles, if we can be said to have
any, is clean morally. They are full of base, downright hypocrisy and
falsehood, and full two-thirds of the whole are members of the
churches. Moral character is not the standard. Crimes that should
cause a blush on fair cheeks assume a front of brass, and defy you to
speak of or talk about them.... A coloured man, only a few days ago,
contended with me that the negroes were right in certain of their
practices, because the Lord Jesus himself said that ‘Seven women
should lay hold of one man.’”
Such was the confession of the Rev. Isaac Williams, with whom four other
negro preachers fully concurred, adding—
“Our acquaintance extends over seven to ten thousand coloured people,
concerning whose lives we know the truth, and that truth is set forth
in Dr. Tucker’s speech without exaggeration. There are exceptions, but
the general truth is stated exactly as it is. We agree also that he
has only given hints as regards many things of such a nature that only
hints are possible.”
On this repulsive subject I also have said enough. Nor will I say much
concerning the degrading superstitions and superstitious practices of
the great mass of ignorant blacks. Two years ago the _Herald_, a
respectable paper in Boston, published an article five and a half
columns long, the object of which was to demonstrate that Voodooism
existed to an alarming extent among the coloured people of Boston and
New England generally. Here are a couple of extracts:—
“No people are so prone by nature and force of circumstances to
superstition as the blacks. Devout and easily excited, they are apt to
accept, blindly and without reasoning, the traditions of their
fathers; and even among those of reasonable education there are traces
of the idolatrous creeds and customs which have always characterised
the West India Negroes. Voodooism, of which much has been hinted, a
little written, but almost nothing known—one of the blackest, crudest,
and most heathenish forms of idolatry the world has ever seen—exists
to-day to an alarming extent right here in Puritan New England.”
“Perhaps the fact that the negroes have always regarded themselves as
a wronged people impels them to cultivate a revengeful spirit; and the
prevailing object of their so-called spells is in the direction of
working harm to their enemies. They pay more attention to vengeance
than to the cure of diseases, although claiming wonderful power from
their herbs and decoctions. The prevailing sentiment, if it may be so
termed, of Voodooism, aside from idolatry, is revenge, and in their
hatreds these people are implacable. No punishment is too horrible to
be visited upon their enemies.”
Most white Bostonians believed that the article was full of
exaggerations, but, to the general surprise, the negroes practically
admitted the impeachment.
Here is part of a resolution which was passed in July, 1889, by the
Coloured National League sitting at Boston:—
“Whereas the Boston _Herald_ has lately shown that the degrading
superstition of Voodooism, as well as its practice, exists here in
Boston to some extent among a few illiterate and ignorant persons of
our race; and whereas the sentiment among the better class of coloured
people is that no one should be swifter to condemn any kind of foolish
race superstition or disreputable practice than the coloured people
themselves; and whereas it should everywhere be the aim and desire of
the coloured people to welcome any information that may show the need
of greater race enlightenment, or that shall stir us up to more
earnest efforts for the general elevation of our people; be it
resolved that the League places itself on record as being both anxious
and willing to strike hands with the _Herald_, or any one else, in
condemning, discountenancing, and stamping out Voodooism or any other
‘ism’ hurtful to the physical, moral, or spiritual elevation of the
coloured people; and that the League calls upon good coloured people
everywhere to set their face like a flint against every kind or evil
superstition, habit, practice, custom, or belief, whose tendency, if
encouraged, might be to degrade, belittle, or harm the coloured people
in public estimation.”
I may add that, not perhaps at Boston, but certainly in the South, and
especially in Louisiana, Voodooism exists to-day. I pass on to criminal
statistics as they concern the negro.
I will first take some suggestive statistics concerning the State of
Mississippi, one of the “blackest” States in the Union, the population,
according to the Census of 1880, having been—white, 479,398; coloured,
650,291. In the State Penitentiary on December 1, 1885, there were 103
white and 676 coloured males. Of the coloured people 113 were mulattoes,
and the total number of coloured criminals in Mississippi in 1885 would
be still further augmented if the number of judicial and irregular
executions could be ascertained. As it is, it is clear that an unduly
large proportion of criminality is furnished by the negro and negroid
population. Mr. H. S. Fulkerson, who has written an interesting pamphlet
on “The Negro” (Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1887), was induced by these
startling figures to go further into the subject, and to examine the
gaol register of Vicksburg, Mississippi, from March 1st, 1886, to
February 28th, 1887. He found the commitments for the year to have been
446, as many as 426 of the prisoners being coloured, and only 20 white.
The population of Vicksburg in 1880 was—whites 5,975; coloured, 5,836.
He also examined, for the same period, the register of Vicksburg
Workhouse, an institution in which violators of the city ordinances,
&c., are confined. Of 1,416 persons committed 992 were coloured and 424
white. In 1889, in Charleston, 2,202 coloured persons were arrested, as
against only 1,250 whites. Most of the arrests during the year were made
for the following offences:
────────────────────┬─────────┬─────────
│ Whites. │Coloured.
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Disorderly conduct │ 160│ 518
Drunk │ 248│ 165
Drunk and disorderly│ 242│ 291
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Total │ 650│ 974
────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────
And here, to put the matter in a nutshell, are the relative proportions,
as gathered from the United States Census of Prisoners, of black to
white criminality in half a dozen States:—Massachusetts, 2¾ to 1;
Indiana, 6¼; to 1; Illinois, 2·4 to 1; Tennessee, 5 to 1; South
Carolina, 6¾ to 1; and Georgia, 7·8 to 1. Thus in Tennessee the coloured
man is five times as prone to criminality as the white, and in Georgia
nearly eight times. And it must be borne in mind that these figures deal
only with that portion of the total criminality which finds its way into
prison. They do not, and no official figures can, take into account the
criminality which is summarily punished by the operation of lynch law;
and every one who knows the South knows also that, out of every fifty
persons who are lynched there, at least forty-nine are of coloured
complexion. Of lynching, however, I shall speak later, for it is mainly
reserved as a punishment for one particular crime, the prevalence of
which has a most important bearing upon the position of the Southern
white.
Educationally, the coloured man has undoubtedly made great progress
since his emancipation. In the slavery days ignorance was imposed by law
upon the slave. Says the South Carolinian statute of 1834:—“If any
person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or procure any
slave to be taught to read or write, such person, if a free white
person, shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars for each
offence and imprisonment not less than six months; or, if a free person
of colour, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes and fined not
exceeding fifty dollars; and, if a slave, shall be whipped at the
discretion of the Court not exceeding fifty lashes; the informer to be
entitled to one-half the fine and to be a competent witness.” And up to
the day of emancipation the slave was, with scarcely an exception, kept
in the densest ignorance. From the close of the war to the taking of the
tenth census only fifteen years elapsed. In that period the adult negro
had not greatly advanced, but the negro youth had made an amount of
progress which, though by no means startling, was, I think, distinctly
encouraging. The following table shows (1) the illiteracy of the male
adult negro, and (2) the illiteracy of the whole negro population of the
Black Belt in 1880:—
──────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────
│ Total │ Illiterate │ Total │ Total
│ Coloured │ Coloured │ Coloured │ Coloured
│Male Adults.│Male Adults.│Population. │Illiterates.
──────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Virginia │ 128,257│ 100,210│ 631,707│ 315,660
North Carolina│ 105,018│ 80,282│ 532,505│ 271,943
South Carolina│ 118,889│ 93,010│ 604,472│ 310,071
Georgia │ 143,471│ 116,516│ 725,274│ 391,482
Florida │ 27,489│ 19,110│ 126,838│ 60,420
Alabama │ 118,423│ 96,408│ 600,320│ 321,680
Mississippi │ 130,278│ 99,068│ 652,199│ 319,753
Louisiana │ 107,977│ 86,555│ 484,992│ 259,429
──────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
│ 879,802│ 691,159│ 4,358,357│ 2,250,438
──────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────
Thus, while the proportion of male adults who could read and write was,
roughly speaking, only one in four, the proportion of coloured people of
all ages was one in two. I have been informed at Washington that the
eleventh census is likely to show that in these States seven coloured
people out of every ten have escaped the imputation of illiteracy; but
at the same time I have been warned that “writing” necessarily implies
nothing more than ability to laboriously trace a signature, and that
“reading” does not involve the ability to mark, learn, and inwardly
digest anything more abstruse than a sentence in monosyllables. As Judge
Tourgée has said:—
“One of the encouraging phases of the present situation is the fact
that a coloured man is proud of the distinction of being able to read
and write. It is to him a sort of patent of nobility. It shows to the
world that he has gone above the level, that he has come up above the
mass of his fellows, and is worthy of distinction and consideration in
this respect if in no other. Because of these facts the statistics of
illiteracy among the coloured people are peculiarly unreliable.”
We may accept them as such, and yet regard them as encouraging. The
level of education is rising. It has not risen high, and the number of
negroes who possess such an education as is the property of a senior boy
at a London Board School may probably, even now, not mount to six
figures. But there is promise in the fact that the race supplies for its
own improvement over 16,000 school teachers. An educated negro has
supplied some statistics on the subject of coloured education in the
South:—
“In 1887–88,” he writes, “there were 15,000 public schools, having
1,118,556 pupils; 16 normal schools, 119 teachers and 3,924 pupils,
with property valued at $992,350; 31 schools for secondary
instruction, 247 teachers, with 6,555 students, and property valued at
$843,100; 11 colleges of arts and sciences, 79 teachers, 922 students,
and property valued at $1,443,000; two schools of science, 29
teachers, 840 students, and property valued at $50,000; 16 theological
schools, 77 teachers, 833 students, and $489,500 in property; 4 law
schools, 16 teachers, 81 students, and $40,000 in property; 3 schools
of medicine, 48 teachers, 165 students, and $80,000 in property; while
there were 2,081 pupils in schools for the blind and dumb, making a
total of 16,430 teachers, 1,139,904 pupils, and $3,934,950 in school
property.”
Unfortunately there are no symptoms whatever that the spread of
education among the negroes is causing, or ever will cause, the
diminution of white prejudice against the race.
Concerning the material position of the negroes opinions vary greatly.
There is no doubt, however, that they are gradually acquiring property,
and, in a few cases, accumulating capital. It was recently declared that
coloured people owned a million acres of land in Texas alone, paying
taxes there on twenty million dollars’ worth of property, and there were
in the State twenty-five coloured lawyers, one hundred coloured
merchants, five thousand coloured mechanics, and fifteen newspapers
conducted by coloured people. Somewhat similar statements have been
made, by negro speakers and writers chiefly, concerning the progress of
the race elsewhere. Says one journal:—
“Georgia’s coloured people are making a good record for thrift and
industry. In 1879 their property was valued at $5,182,398; but in 1887
the valuation was $8,939,479, showing a gain of 72½ per cent. during
the nine years. In the same time the valuation of white men’s property
had risen from $229,777,150 to $332,565,442, a gain of only 44·6 per
cent. approximately. These figures simply prove what the intelligent
representatives of the negro race have said about the progress made,
and go to illustrate anew that the negroes are working out their own
future. The richest coloured woman in the South, Mrs. Amanda Ewas, who
has a snug fortune of $400,000, lives in Atlanta.”
On the other hand, the Charleston _News and Courier_ points out that in
Charleston the negroes stand just where they did in 1860; that the value
of the property held by them to-day is just about the same as that held
by the free negroes twenty-eight years ago, and that, strange to say,
the coloured property holders are of the same class as in 1860, namely,
the descendants of negroes who were free before the war.
I have had an opportunity of examining the assessment rolls of Chatham
County, in which the city of Savannah, Georgia, is situated. These, as
compiled in the summer of 1889, give the following results:—
────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────
│Population. │ Property. │Property per
│ │ │ Head.
────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Whites │ 17,494│$126,420,780│ $1,510
Coloured│ 27,515│ 571,450│ 21
────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────
The negroes and coloured people, therefore, who constitute 61 per cent.
of the local population, hold only 2 per cent. of the local wealth.
On the same subject the New Orleans _Times-Democrat_ says:—
“We doubt whether the value of property held by coloured men in New
Orleans is any greater to-day than that held by the freedmen of colour
in 1860, and yet both in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana the
negro has been improving his condition steadily. It takes more than
one generation, however, to raise a race held in bonds of slavery to
the condition of property holders. When the hundreds of millions of
dollars that have been paid the negroes in wages and the millions
wasted by them in the veriest trash are considered, it seems strange
that so few dollars have been invested in land, houses, or any
permanent property. The freedmen of colour who inherited land or
houses have held on to them, or at least to a portion of them. The
negroes engaged in any very profitable trade or business may have laid
aside something and own some little property, but the great majority
of the race, who are simply farm hands, labourers, or domestic
servants, have acquired no permanent property of any kind.”
As a further illustration of the relative status of blacks and whites in
what may be regarded as a representative section of the Black Belt, I
append some interesting and detailed official statistics of Richmond
County, Georgia, a county which had a total population in 1870 of
25,724, and in 1880 of 34,665, and which is one of the most populous and
well-to-do counties in the State. In it, moreover, the races are almost
equally divided.
Polls for 1889—White 5,069, coloured 4,029; total 9,098. Polls for
1888—White 4,923, coloured 3,844; total 8,767—an increase of 331.
Lawyers in 1889—White 50, coloured 1; total 51. Lawyers in 1888—White
48, coloured 1; total 49—an increase of 2.
Doctors in 1889—White 53, coloured 1. In 1888—White 46, coloured 2—an
increase of 6.
Dentists in 1889—White 11, coloured 1; and the same for 1888.
Acres of land owned in 1889—White 180,332, coloured 4,943; total
185,275. Acres in 1888—White 180,835¼, coloured 4,661; total
185,496¼—a decrease of 221¼ acres.
Aggregate value of land in 1889—White $1,571,550, coloured $64,440;
total $1,638,990. In 1888—White $1,619,720, coloured $66,810; total
$1,686,530—a decrease of $47,540.
Aggregate value of city or town property in 1889—White $9,713,140,
coloured $438,940; total $10,152,080. In 1888—white $9,364,150,
coloured $416,620; total $9,980,770—an increase of $371,310.
The number of shares in State or national banks is the same for 1888
and 1889, and is 20,300, and they are all owned by the whites.
The value of shares of such bank stock for 1889 is returned at
$887,000, and for 1888 was returned at $1,002,000, showing a decrease
of $115,000.
Property owned by gas or electric light companies is all owned by
whites, and is valued in 1889 at $203,840, and for 1888 was returned
at $215,250, showing a decrease of $11,410.
Amount of money and solvent debts, notes, accounts, etc., for
1889—whites $1,358,890, coloured $150; total $1,359,040. In
1888—whites $1,491,630, coloured $150; total $1,491,780—a decrease of
$132,740.
Merchandise of every sort for 1889—whites $1,260,550, coloured $5,730;
total $1,266,280. In 1888—whites $1,278,290, coloured $5,680; total
$1,283,970—a decrease of $17,690.
The capital invested in shipping and tonnage is all white, and for
1889 is $16,200. In 1888 it was $27,620—a decrease of $11,420.
Stocks and bonds are all white, and for 1889 are returned at
$1,209,120, and for 1888 at $1,400,630, showing a decrease of
$191,510.
Cotton manufactories are all white, and are returned for 1889 at
$4,023,300, against $3,946,000 for 1888—an increase of $77,300.
Iron works, foundries, etc., are all white, and are returned for 1889
at $33,500, against $35,500, showing a decrease of $2,000.
Value of household and kitchen furniture, pianos, organs, etc., for
1889—White $570,690, coloured $17,990; total $588,680. In 1888—White
$550,300, coloured $14,490; total $564,790—an increase of $23,890.
Watches, silver plate, and jewellery for 1880—White $74,020, coloured
$50; total $74,070. In 1888—White $77,950, coloured $50; total
$78,000—a decrease of $3,930.
Horses, mules, hogs, sheep, cattle, etc., for 1889—White $200,140,
coloured $12,820; total $212,960. In 1888—White $199,430, coloured
$13,580; total $213,016—a decrease of $50.
Plantation and mechanical tools, law or other library books, pictures,
etc., are all returned by whites, and for 1889 are $63,100, against
$71,650 for 1888, showing a decrease of $8,550.
Cotton, corn, crops, and provisions held for sale on April 1st are all
white, and are returned for $350 in 1889 and $2,000 in 1888, showing a
decrease of $1,650.
Value of all other property not before enumerated for 1889—White
$405,170, coloured $4,440; total $409,610. In 1888—White $343,430,
coloured $3,960; total $357,390—an increase of $52,220.
Aggregate value of whole property in 1889—White $21,590,560, coloured
$547,560; total $22,138,120. In 1888—White $21,635,550, coloured
$521,340; total $22,156,890—an aggregated decrease of $18,770.
In view of facts like these, it is hard to know what to make of the
favourite negro declaration that the coloured people will, in the not
distant future, be as powerful in the South in the matter of wealth as
they already are in the matter of numbers. I believe, nevertheless, that
it may be accepted that the material improvement in the coloured man’s
condition is more noticeable than his improvement in any other
direction. He lives more comfortably and dresses better than he did
eight or ten years ago; and, as his main ambitions are physical and
material rather than intellectual and æsthetic, he is entitled to
congratulate himself.
The general progress of the negro does not, however, satisfy those who
once cherished the highest hopes on his behalf. Here is a suggestive,
and, as I happen to know, a true paragraph, dated Atlanta, Georgia, June
1, 1889, which I clip from a Southern newspaper:—
“A celebrated English philanthropist was buried here yesterday, having
died at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Booth. John Glazebrook was
his name, and he was a citizen of Manchester, England. He was a man of
great wealth, and becoming interested in the abolition of slavery in
the United States, spent thousands of pounds in aiding the agitation.
He paid the expenses of lecturers, had runaway slaves exhibited before
English audiences, and placed his fortune in the scales to accomplish
the abolition of human servitude. A few months ago he decided to visit
this country for the purpose of seeing whether the negro had improved.
He died with the declaration that he had wasted his money, and that
freedom had brought no benefit to the negro.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE POSITION OF THE SOUTHERN WHITE.
In the Southern States, and especially in the States which constitute
the Black Belt, the Race Question has in recent years assumed far more
serious proportions than is generally supposed. It has, in fact, assumed
the proportions of a species of guerilla race war. Few people, even in
America, thoroughly realise this. The leading newspapers of the country
pay surprisingly little attention to occurrences outside the district in
which they find the majority of their readers. There is, so far as I am
aware, no neutral journal which busies itself exclusively with the
problem, and, consequently, Americans and foreigners alike are without
any mirror in which they may periodically see reflected all the aspects
and all the incidents of the situation. To keep up with the history of
the Race Question the student must read, not the great newspapers of New
York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, or New Orleans, but rather the
little county newspapers of the South—newspapers the very names of which
are scarcely known in the North and wholly unknown in Europe. And even
these rural newspapers must be read with discretion and discrimination,
for all of them are partisans. Some make a point of dwelling at length
upon accounts of outrages committed by negroes, and of almost ignoring
accounts of outrages committed by whites; others—they are, it is true,
in the minority—follow the opposite plan. A few only are fair; a few
only would care to print so free a confession as the following, which I
take from the Augusta (Georgia) _Chronicle_, of Jan. 5th, 1890:—
“Laws are powerless either to prevent the commission of crime or to
punish criminals, unless public sentiment forbids the one and commands
the other. Where there is little regard for human life, and we fear
this is the case in many portions of our country, the courts are often
to blame for not hanging those who slay their fellow-men. Is it not a
fact that it is almost impossible to convict a man of the crime of
murder who has any social position or means to defend himself?
Fortunately, crimes of this sort do not often occur; but, if they did,
public sentiment is so demoralised that the courts would fail of
conviction. This is true as to white men who kill their equals. If a
negro kills a white man, he is pretty sure either to be lynched or
hung. But if a white man slays a negro, he is in no danger of being
lynched, and as to his being hung for the crime there is not much
probability.”
To understand, therefore, both sides of the question, and to fully
appreciate the seriousness of the situation, one must be a far more
omnivorous devourer of newspapers than the ordinary citizen of Great
Britain or of America has time to be. I have had exceptional
opportunities. While I was in the country I met the leading men of both
sides, and had thrust upon me the newspapers, big and little, of both
parties. Nay, many people who for years have made a study of the subject
were so good as to place their notes and their volumes of illustrative
newspaper clippings at my disposal. Thus I may pretend to have secured
the broadest and most far-reaching view of the difficulties amid which
the South stands; and I cannot hide from myself the conclusion that, as
between the races, the situation throughout the Black Belt is veritably,
as I have said, one of active though unprofessed guerilla warfare. In
the last chapter I gave a number of examples, selected almost at hazard
from a far larger number which I might have cited, of the manner in
which this warfare is being waged by the whites against the blacks. In
this I shall give examples, similarly selected to a great extent, of the
manner in which this warfare is being waged by the blacks against the
whites. I have, I think, amply demonstrated the existence of hostility
on the white side. What I shall quote now may, in the opinion of many,
provide good excuse for the existence of that hostility; but I would
submit that it also proves the inherent and unconquerable mutual
antipathy of the races and their hopeless unsuitability for life side by
side and upon a level of approximate equality. The antipathy is not
between individual blacks and whites. It is rather such an antipathy as
used to exist between Turks and Slavs in the Balkan provinces in the
days of the Bulgarian atrocities, although that antipathy was religious
as well as racial and political.
And here let me say at once, deliberately and without hesitation, that
if the racial crimes and outrages which are of daily occurrence in the
Southern States were taking place in a semi-civilised part of Europe,
and were only half as well advertised as the events in Bulgaria were,
the public sentiment of Europe would at once insist upon, and would
within six months secure, reform, even at the cost of war. Such a
situation as sullies the South is a disgrace to the fair name of
Anglo-Saxon civilisation. It is not for me to attempt to apportion the
blame. Doubtless there are grave faults on both sides. As an
unprejudiced observer, I can merely declare generally that the condition
of affairs is not only a scandal so far as the United States are
concerned, but also a matter of which all civilised humanity has cause
to be ashamed.
It was my good fortune in the course of my tour to meet, and to confer
very intimately with, the anonymous author of the most remarkable book
that has yet appeared upon the Race Question. I mean “An Appeal to
Pharaoh,” a volume published in the winter of 1889 in New York by
Messrs. Fords, Howard, and Hulbert. To this volume I must make further
allusion when I come to consider the difficult, but inevitable,
problem—what is to be done? At present I mention it incidentally for the
reason that I am anxious to repeat here something that its writer said
to me, and for the reason that all who have read the work will, I am
sure, extend due deference to any opinion expressed by so competent and
unbiased an authority. My friend knows the South as few know it, and he
has for the negro a genuine and kindly regard; yet, said he, “if the
option were offered me of taking my wife and family into one of the
black country districts of the South, or into a jungle full of wild
beasts, and if I were obliged to leave them without proper protection, I
would unhesitatingly choose the jungle.” I did not ask why. I knew that
it was because no white woman is safe, from hour to hour, in those black
country districts. It was because the race war on the black man’s side
is waged largely, though not exclusively, against the whites who are
least capable of self-protection, and whose safety is held most precious
by those to whom they are near and dear. I am bound to produce evidence
concerning this awful phase of the struggle; and, unfortunately, there
is evidence in plenty ready to my hand. “Lynched for the usual crime” is
a stereotyped heading in many scores of Southern newspapers. Nor, as a
rule, is the brutality of the negro’s act much less conspicuous than the
speed and cruelty with which the victim is avenged. On both sides it is
a terrible and almost unparalleled state of affairs. I will restrict
myself to the recital at length of one case only:—
“Louisville, Kentucky, September 2nd, 1889.—The _Courier Journal_ has
a special from Somerset, Kentucky, which states that news has reached
there of a brutal outrage committed upon the twelve-year-old daughter
of William Oates, a prominent and wealthy farmer residing a few miles
from Montecello. Mr. Oates has two daughters, aged respectively twelve
and fourteen years. Mr. and Mrs. Oates left home on business, and left
the two young girls in charge of the house. Mr. Oates had in his
employ a negro boy about grown. Knowing that the old folks were away,
he entered the house, and, after locking the door upon the two girls,
assaulted the younger. The elder girl escaped from the room, and,
going to a neighbour’s house, gave the alarm. A posse was organised
and started in pursuit. The negro was caught in the woods and tied to
a stake. A rail pen was then built around him, coal oil was poured
over him and upon the rails, matches were applied, and the negro was
burnt to death.”
Similar outrages are, practically, of every-day occurrence. All of them
do not get into the newspapers. Many families, unwilling to publish
their disgrace and misfortune, bear their trouble in silence. Many of
the criminals, too, are never caught: but here is proof of the
commonness of such crimes as the above. All the cases alluded to took
place during 1890, and, as will be seen, within a very short period, and
all were chronicled in the newspapers.
On October 30th, near Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, a negro, named
Lowe, assaulted a Miss Hardee. He was arrested, but taken from the
officers the same night by a mob of whites, tied to a tree, and shot to
death.
On November 1st, eight miles from Columbia, South Carolina, and a mile
and a half from the Winnsboro Road, a negro attempted to assault and
then murdered Miss Florence Hornsby, aged sixteen. A youth named Hagood
was arrested for the crime. Six years before, this youth’s father had
been lynched near Woodward’s store, at Rockton, for assaulting a lady of
Fairfield County.
On November 3rd, in Twigg’s County, Georgia, a Miss Howell, aged
seventeen, was assaulted by a negro named Owen Jones, who, having been
caught and having confessed, was hung by citizens on a tree on the road
from Hawkinsville to Allentown, fifty shots being then fired into his
body.
On November 6th, Mrs. J. G. Bailey, of Arlington, Tennessee, was killed
by a negro, who escaped, pursued by a posse of citizens intent upon
lynching him.
On the night of November 8th, at Annapolis, Maryland, threats were made
to lynch a coloured man named Forbes, who was in custody there for
having assaulted a white girl. Revolvers were freely drawn, and a
serious riot between whites and blacks was only prevented by the calling
out of the Governor’s Guards.
On November 17th, a negro named Henry Smith, who a few days before had
assaulted one Mrs. Calhoun, was lynched near Chin’s Trestle, Alabama.
Another negro was lynched near Hillman, Alabama, on the same day.
Early in the morning of November 18th, a negro named William Singleton
was lynched at Macon, Georgia, for an attempted assault upon the
daughter of the late Chief Justice Lumpkin. Singleton was hanged, and
two volleys of pistol-shots were fired into the body.
I might, if the topic were not so repulsive, cite hundreds of other
examples. What I have written is, I imagine, quite sufficient to show
that the situation of white women in many parts of the South is a very
perilous one. Nor is this all. Throughout the South, and even elsewhere,
the negro is as ready to kill the white man as the white man is to kill
him. I have mentioned in the last chapter a number of cases in which,
speaking generally, the whites were to blame. Here are some cases, all
of recent occurrence, in most of which the initiative seems to have
come, directly or indirectly, from the blacks, although the savagery
displayed was often about equal on both sides:—
On October 18th, 1890, at Winston, North Carolina, a white gentleman
named Silas Riggs was attacked in the street by a mob of negroes. He
took refuge in a bar-room. The negroes followed and “dared” him to come
out. A few whites who were in the room sallied forth, a fight ensued,
Mr. Riggs was killed, and several other people were badly wounded.
On October 21st–22nd, 1890, in Ware County, Georgia, a dispute
concerning land arose. Thomas Seers, one of the disputants, shot a
negro. The negroes retaliated, killing B. E. M‘Lendon, F. Seers, and T.
Seers, and wounding another white. The despatch announcing this to the
Charleston _World_ says:—“Much of the territory is covered with dense
pine forests, the working of which for turpentine employs large numbers
of both white and black. These are very illiterate, and there is much
race prejudice, which frequently leads to conflicts.”
“Opelika, Alabama, October 26th, 1890.—Bob Redding, the notorious negro
desperado, who has been sought for ten years, was shot and killed at
three o’clock this morning by Policeman Gibson.”
On October 27th, 1890, at the Jing-a-Ling Saloon, North College Street,
Nashville, Tennessee, a coloured man named Lee asked the bartender for a
tin of oysters, and was refused. He left, but returned with a stone,
which he attempted to throw. Before he could do so the white, whose name
was William Young, shot him dead.
On November 1st, 1890, at Greenville, South Carolina, a negro named Sam
Swinger struck with an axe a white man named P. M. Connelly, who died a
few days afterwards from his injuries.
On November 4th, 1890, near Lexington, Georgia, at a negro “hot supper,”
a negro, named Willis Collins, quarrelled with a white, named Wheless,
who shot him with a pistol.
On November 4th, 1890, election day, at Irwine, Estill County, Kentucky,
a white, named Dr. P. A. Lilly, brought up to the polls a negro, named
Charles White. John Wilson, Commissioner of Schools for the county,
challenged White’s right to vote. Upon this Lilly and Wilson quarrelled
and drew their pistols. Wilson was hit twice, but was still able to fire
twice, one of his bullets striking Lilly near the heart. Then William, a
brother of John Wilson, intervened, and took away Lilly’s pistol. Lilly,
however, drew a large knife and thrice stabbed John. A brother of Dr.
Lilly also intervened, but John Wilson, lying in his blood, fired at and
fatally wounded him, and, dragging himself across to where Dr. Lilly
lay, dashed out Lilly’s brains with his pistol. Several bystanders were
slightly wounded; the two Lillys and John Wilson died.
On November 8th, 1890, at Fairmount, near Marion, Indiana, on the
occasion of a Democratic _fête_, a negro named Tom Uttley interfered in
the proceedings. A white named W. H. Campbell defied him, and both drew
their pistols and fired simultaneously. Each had fired two harmless
shots, when a white named Con Paul flung a brick at the negro, who
turned and shot him dead. Another negro, named Rayser, came to the
assistance of Uttley, and was shot through the left leg and right arm.
Uttley fled, but was captured. In the _mêlée_, besides Paul and Rayser,
four men were seriously wounded.
It cannot, I think, be necessary to say much more in order to prove the
existence in the United States of race prejudice of a very dangerous and
inflammable sort. The Southern white may be as well off, as regards the
negro, as he deserves to be; but, nevertheless, his position and the
position of his womankind are not enviable; and it tends to—nay, a large
body of the negroes intend that it shall—become worse. Here is what
appeared in August, 1889, in a newspaper called the _Independent_, which
was published in Selma, Alabama, under the editorship of a negro
preacher, named Bryan:—
“Were you (the whites) to leave this Southland, in twenty years it
would be one of the grandest sections of the globe. We would show you
mossback-crackers how to run a country. You would never see convicts,
half-starved, depriving honest working-men of an honest living. It is
only a matter of time when throughout this whole State affairs will be
changed, and, I hope, to your sorrow. We were never destined to be
always servants, but, like all other races, will and must have our
day. You now have yours. You have had your revolutionary and civil
wars, and we here predict that at no very distant day we will have our
war, and we hope, as God intends, that we will be strong enough to
wipe you out of existence, or hardly leave enough of you to tell the
story.”
And yet the armchair theorists of the North say:—“All is well; the race
question in the South may now safely be left to settle itself.” It will
never settle itself, unless by wholesale bloodshed.
One must have lived in the South to appreciate the ever-widening gap
that exists between the races. One must have lived in the South to
appreciate the strength of the passions that lie half slumbering there,
but are always ready to awake. Here, by way of partial illustration, is
a summary of a speech which was made in September, 1889, in the Georgia
Senate by Senator Gibbs, in favour of the repeal of the law prohibiting
emigration agents from working in the State, his idea being to
facilitate coloured emigration. Senator Gibbs claimed that the State
would not be ruined by the loss of a race of people who, in their
emancipated condition, were unfit for labourers. The free negro, he
said, was worthless as a labourer. Emancipated, he became useless and
lapsed into barbarous Voodooism. He quoted figures to sustain the
position that freedom had destroyed the negroes’ usefulness.
Notwithstanding the great increase of blacks since the war, production
had in Georgia suffered a loss of nearly one-half. This, to him, denoted
the great demoralisation which had overtaken negro labour, and accounted
for the enormous class of vagabond negroes whose presence in the State
was a “continual menace to property, to peace, and to virtue.” It was
highly necessary, he maintained, to get rid of this dangerous criminal
element. The lives of Southern women were actually circumscribed and
bound in, for fear of assault at the hands of these scoundrels. Unless
something should be done to relieve the strain which owed its existence
to the presence of these wretches, the time would come, before long,
when the white people would rise as one man and demand emigration or
extermination. “It has only been a short time since,” said he, “that one
of the villains having suffered as he deserved at East Point, the
negroes formed a plot to burn that town and kill the citizens. Nothing
was said about that; but as soon as the whites rose to defend
themselves, and castigated some of the plotters, the cry of ‘Outrage!’
was heard from one end of the land to the other. ‘Outrage on innocent
negroes,’ to discourage them in their lawlessness! I care not what
course the courts may take; when the white men strike for home and
fireside I am with them. There is not room in this country for both the
negro and the Yankee. Vast sums have been expended to educate negroes,
who have never done and will never do the State the least good. On the
contrary, they are always ready, at the call of the carpetbagger and his
base Southern ally, to do her all the harm in their power.”
These extracts give no notion of the violence of the speaker’s language,
but only of the tone of his speech, which admirably represented the
blind intolerance of that section of Southern whites that refuses to see
any good whatever in the negro, and that seems not even to recognise his
humanity.
The very carelessness of the negroes on the subject of the white man’s
most cherished creeds and principles has more than once gone near to
provoke a dreadful outbreak. The article already cited from the Selma
_Independent_ narrowly escaped doing so, although it contained only
vulgar threats. More dangerous was an article that was printed in
August, 1887, in another negro paper, the Montgomery _Herald_. “Every
day or so,” it said brutally, “we read of the lynching of some negro for
outraging some white woman. Why is it that white women attract negro men
more than in former days? There was a time when such a thing was unheard
of. There is a secret to this thing, and we greatly suspect it is the
growing appreciation of the white Juliet for the coloured Romeo as he
becomes more and more intelligent and refined. If something is not done
to break up these lynchings it will be so that after a while they will
lynch every coloured man that looks at a white woman with a twinkle in
his eye.”
The writer of that article, like many of his race, did not, one may
charitably hope, realise the attitude of the Southern white women
towards the negroes. If he did realise it, and if he knew that no
Southern white for an instant admits the social equality of the races,
he was guilty of something very much like playing with gunpowder. Surely
the prevailing sentiment of the whites on the subject of social equality
is sufficiently indicated by the existence in many States of laws
forbidding mixed marriages, and by the existence in all of unwritten
laws which oust the white makers of mixed unions from society, even of
the humblest and least conventional character. The white man is blamable
enough, but not the white woman. There was much truth in a speech of Dr.
Fulton’s on the subject of “The Negro’s Redemption,” which I once
listened to, although, I think, he ought not to have mentioned black
women in his remarks. The chief sinners—if sinners they can be called in
such connection—are the coloured, as distinct from the pure negro, women
of the South. Dr. Fulton declared that the social relations of the
whites and blacks in the South were on the same level to-day as when
slavery existed; even men high in religious circles ran no risk of
ostracisation when it became known they were the fathers of children by
coloured concubines.
And while the armchair theorist of the North is easy in his mind with
regard to the race question, concerning which he knows practically
nothing, the Southern white man, who ought to know all the dangers of
the situation, is, I am obliged to admit, strangely indifferent to them.
His idea seems to be, “There are dangers in the future; but the present
situation will probably last as long as I live, and so I have no need to
greatly worry myself about it. I do not fear the negro; I do not believe
in his power of organisation; and if he were to rise we could crush him
into resignation.” He seems to be unmindful of the fact that the
existence of the Black Belt in the South paralyses his material progress
and fetters his whole action as a citizen. Capital does not go Southward
in search of an investment, or, if it go, it goes seldom, and it goes
with hesitation. It has no confidence in a country which may any day
fall again under the rule of a black majority, and may then drift back
into the anarchy of the Reconstruction period. And, although the white
man does not personally fear the negro, he so much fears him corporately
that all his political principles and leanings have vanished in face of
the one great question, Shall the white rule or the black?
The Southern whites form to-day one political party. Their point of
union is not the tariff, not civil service reform, not the pension
system, but simply and solely the one question. The penalty is that now
for years past one party has been continuously in power throughout the
Solid South, and that it has had practically no opposition. This is an
unwholesome state of public affairs; it would be undesirable anywhere.
In America it is particularly dangerous, for it tends to corrupt. The
Southern State Governments are, it must be admitted, better and purer
than, in the circumstances, might be reasonably expected; but every
intelligent Southerner sees and feels the bad influence.
The South, however, has a choice of two evils, and she has chosen the
least. She is not responsible for the situation. She can only make the
best of it. An illustration of what I mean was afforded during the 1890
elections in South Carolina. The two candidates for Governor were
Haskell and Tillman. Haskell is an honoured veteran of the war, a tried
statesman, a general favourite, and an upright and courteous gentleman.
Tillman’s experience of arms is confined to participation in a race
riot; he is new to politics; he is the favourite only of the lower and
least reputable class of whites; and his election utterances betray him
as glaringly deficient in tact and gravely lacking in conventional
politeness. Both are Democrats. It was Tillman’s fortune, thanks to the
influence of the Farmers’ Alliance, to be the nominee of the Democratic
Convention; and on that point the whole contest turned. All the best men
in the State wanted Haskell, and did not want Tillman; but Haskell had
been offered Republican support, and so, rather than vote for Haskell,
the best men either abstained or voted for Tillman. It would never do,
they felt, to allow Haskell to come into power on a wave which was
partially composed of negro and Republican votes. Party discipline,
therefore, prevailed over personal preference, and the worse man won.
But for the presence of a negro majority in South Carolina, Haskell
would no doubt have been elected. How true it is, as Jefferson said,
that American institutions are founded on jealousy and distrust, and not
on confidence!
Yet, although the white resents the presence of the black, and forbids
the black to fully exercise such rights as the Federal Government has
conferred upon him, the white is, withal, more dependent to-day upon the
negro than the negro is upon the white. There can be no question that
the sudden removal to-morrow of every white man from the Black Belt
would cause far less inconvenience to the negroes than the sudden
removal of every black and coloured man would cause to the whites. The
needs of the negro are small, and he can supply most of them by his own
exertion. The needs of the white man are relatively large, and he has
been for generations accustomed to have most of them supplied to him by
the exertion of the negro—first as slave, and, for the last quarter of a
century, as very lightly paid freedman. The result is that in certain
spheres of labour the negro is supreme throughout the South. He has no
white rivals, for the reason that the wages which content him would be
scorned by the lowest and poorest white in the country. His
disappearance, therefore, would leave those particular spheres—the
cottonfield, the plantations, the domestic servants’ department, and
many more—absolutely empty. In a word, without the negro, or without, at
least, some substitute for the negro, the Southern white would for a
time be in danger of starving.
Let me not be here understood to mean that upon the whole the South is
unsuitable as the white man’s home. It is, on the contrary, a fit home
and, in most parts, a healthy one for him. The death-rate per thousand
inhabitants in the eight most distinctively Southern States is given in
the 1880 census report as follows: Alabama, 14·20; Arkansas, 18·46;
Florida, 11·72; Georgia, 13·97; Louisiana, 15·44; Mississippi, 12·89;
North Carolina, 15·39; and South Carolina, 15·80. These are the swampy,
malarial States, commonly accounted most pestilential in climate.
Compare their death-rates with those of eight other States commonly
accounted salubrious in climate: Indiana, 15·78; Kansas, 15·22;
Massachusetts, 18·59; New Hampshire, 16·09; New Jersey, 16·33; New York,
17·38; Rhode Island, 17; and Illinois, 14·63. The comparison is not
unfavourable to the South; and it must be borne in mind that the
death-rates given for the Southern States named include negroes as well
as whites, a fact which enormously swells the average, for the reason
that the negro death-rate is much higher than the white, and in many
cases more than doubles it.
The fact that the menial work of the South is done by the negro,
combined with the fact that the black race is despised by the white, is
responsible for the existence in the South of a class of whites such as
is met with nowhere else in the United States; I mean the poor and idle
and unashamed class. These people will not undertake menial work as we
understand it. They believe that, if they did so, they would _ipso
facto_ place themselves on a level with the negroes.
The upshot is that the Southern white man is, as a rule, either a
“boss,” (that is, an employer of labour) or a “loafer.” The “boss” is
generally a good citizen; the “loafer” is uniformly a bad one, but he
seems to be a necessary product of the situation. The presence of the
negro has created him, and he is a very dangerous factor in the race
problem. He is the man who preys upon the community, white as well as
black. He deems it more worthy of his white manhood to be a gambler, a
corrupt political adventurer, a haunter of low saloons, a braggart and a
swaggerer, than to work for a poor but honest living. And even the white
man who is not a “loafer,” but a “boss,” is often enough a very small
“boss” indeed—the farmer of a few thin and infertile acres—a citizen who
is only a “boss” because, for race reasons, he is too proud to accept
employment. In one of the North-Western States he would naturally be a
“farm-hand,” and would be much better off than he is, as his own master,
in Georgia or Mississippi.
The result of this condition of affairs is that in the Black Belt wealth
is less equally divided than it is elsewhere. There is the small class
of white capitalists, there is the larger class of poor whites, and
there is the still larger class of negroes, most of whom live literally
from hand to mouth. The war is, of course, partially responsible for a
certain amount of white poverty; but the main cause is, as I have said,
the presence of the negro; and upon poverty and false pride follows
ignorance. There is more white ignorance in the South than in any other
part of the States. The average percentage of white illiteracy among
people of ten years old and upwards in the Northern States in 1880 was
5·2; and it varied from 3·5 in Nebraska, 3·6 in Oregon, 3·7 in Kansas,
and 3·8 in Iowa, to 7·0 in Indiana and 10·9—a wholly exceptional
figure—in Rhode Island. But the average percentage of white illiteracy
among people of ten years old and upwards in the States of the Black
Belt in 1880 was 22·2, the percentage in the individual States
being—Mississippi, 16·3; Virginia, 18·2; Louisiana, 18·4; Florida, 19·9;
South Carolina, 21·9; Georgia, 22·9; Alabama, 24·7; and North Carolina,
31·5. And this comparison, significant as it is, does not show the whole
extent of Southern white illiteracy, for the figures above given refer
not merely to the native, but also to the foreign-born population.
Putting aside the latter, one finds that while the average native white
illiteracy in the North was but 3·2 per cent., that in the South was
24·7 per cent. Thus, of every four native-born whites in the Black Belt,
three only even pretended to be able to read and write. The proportion
of native white illiterates in the whole North was no more than one in
thirty-one. In Massachusetts it was considerably less than one in a
hundred. So much for the demoralising influence of the situation upon
the white man. I have now to review some of the suggested solutions to
the race problem.
CHAPTER V.
SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS.
When freedom was first given to the Slaves in the South, no one
suspected that the measure was destined to create a new and more
difficult phase of a problem which had already brought the Union to the
verge of ruin. Nearly every one believed that manumission would, in
course of time, solve the race question; and those who did not believe
that manumission alone would produce this result, were apparently
convinced that manumission combined with extension of the suffrage, and
with the concession of full rights of citizenship to the freedmen, could
not possibly fail to be efficacious; and so Amendment XV. was passed as
a final panacea.
But, in fairness to the foresight of a discerning minority, it should be
remembered that the amendment was not passed unanimously. It was
rejected by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Indiana, Oregon, and
Tennessee, and later, on reflection, by New York. It is true that it was
ultimately ratified by 29 out of 37 States. Several of these were,
however, at the time under “Reconstruction,” and the ratification from
Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, may be supposed to have
been to some extent exacted under duress. Still, the question of giving
suffrage to the negro was not then anywhere regarded from the point of
view from which it is now seen by the best men of all parties. As Judge
Tourgée has pointed out, it was confidently predicted by every theorist
who speculated upon the subject, that the negro would wither away under
the influences of freedom and civilisation. It was unhesitatingly
asserted, and almost universally believed, that the first decade of
liberty would show the race to have been decimated by disease,
debauchery, and the lack of the master’s paternal care. It was not an
unnatural conclusion for men to arrive at who devoutly believed in the
negro’s incapacity for self-support. Mr. Tourgée adds:—
“That the people of the North should believe it also is hardly to be
wondered at. They have always reflected the Southern idea of the negro
in everything, except as to his natural right to be free and to
exercise the rights of the freeman. The North, however, has never
desired the numerical preponderance of the coloured man, and has
especially desired to avoid responsibility in regard thereto. From the
first it seems to have been animated by a sneaking notion that after
having used the negro to fight its battles, freed him as the natural
result of the overthrow of a rebellion based on slavery, and
enfranchised him to constitute a political foil to the ambition and
disloyalty of his former master, it could at any time unload him upon
the States where he chanced to dwell, wash its hands of all further
responsibility in the matter, and leave him to live or die as chance
might determine. It seems a hard saying, but there is very little
doubt that, side by side with the belief in the Northern mind that the
negro would disappear beneath the glare of civilisation, was a
half-conscious feeling that such disappearance would be a very simple
and easy solution of a troublesome question.
It being, then, the prevalent and all but general impression that the
negro would soon die out, it scarcely occurred to legislators to
question whether or nor it might complicate matters to make him, for his
short season on earth, a full voting citizen. Had it been foreseen that,
far from dying out, the negro would increase and multiply to an almost
unheard-of extent, there would, we may be sure, have been much more
hesitation than there was over the passing of Amendment XV. That
amendment may be repealed at any time by the action of two-thirds of
both Houses of Congress, and by subsequent ratification by three-fourths
of the States of the Union; but to look for its repeal now is hopeless.
Colonel T. B. Edgington, a Northerner, recognising the menace of negro
suffrage to Southern civilisation, proposed, in a speech delivered at
Memphis in June, 1889, to get over this phase of the difficulty by
limiting the right to vote among the negroes, and by making the office
of voter, or suffragist among them, an elective office—an office that a
man shall hold, say for four years, by election of the whole body of the
people, or by election of the coloured people alone, if this course seem
preferable. Thus no property or educational qualification would be
required. The end desired could be attained by so adjusting and limiting
the negro vote that it should not exceed say 5 or 10 per cent. of the
white vote on any given question or issue.
There have been many other advocates in favour of limitation or
suspension of negro suffrage; and a movement towards this end has lately
made much progress in Mississippi; but, upon the whole, it seems to me
that, as I have said, to look for the repeal of Amendment XV. is
hopeless.
Nor would its repeal at the present date solve the difficulty. It would
rather accentuate it; for the negro would not submit to be thus set back
upon his upward path. Indeed, repeal of the Amendment is even more
ridiculous as a remedy than is another measure which, nevertheless, has
more than once been advocated by speakers and writers who ought to have
known better—I mean the extermination of the inconvenient race: for,
whereas extermination would be undoubtedly effective, repeal would only
reopen the difficulty in a new and inflamed phase.
Neither policy is to be seriously considered. The United States have,
both as individual States and as a Union, incurred towards the negro
liabilities which cannot be repudiated or shirked. The country kidnapped
and imported the negro, enslaved him or connived at his enslavement,
used him for national purposes, freed him and put power into his hands;
and it cannot now or ever shake off all responsibility concerning him.
As he is, he is, for many reasons, an undesirable fellow-citizen; but he
was created a fellow-citizen to suit the temporary political interests
of the North; and, having served those interests, he is not now to be
disowned and cast out a beggar. Equality between the races is a hopeless
dream; yet the whole fabric of American institutions rests upon the
assumed equality of the citizens. If American institutions honestly and
freely tolerated the existence of “classes,” the race question would
never have attained its present importance. The negro, while “keeping
his place,” might still have enjoyed his vote. As things stand, he is
practically, in spite of his nominal rights, an alien. When, as in the
Reconstruction Period, he exercised his rights most fully, he did so to
the prejudice of the rights of the Southern white, who was then, as it
were, the alien. Now, when the white Southerner has fully resumed the
exercise of his rights, the black man suffers proportionately. And every
day’s experience shows more and more clearly that real equality in the
South, as between whites and blacks, is impossible of attainment. Says
the New York _Tribune_, with bitterness but with truth:—
“There may be one faith, one baptism, and one name under Heaven
whereby men may be saved, but in South Carolina there must be a white
man’s church, high-toned and very respectable, and a place somewhere
outside where the negroes may herd together without disturbing the
pious meditations of their superiors. Simon of Cyrene, who carried the
cross, was a negro, but that passage in the Gospels can be bracketed
if need be, and not read in the white churches of Charleston during
Holy Week. The Ethiopian eunuch baptised by Philip could not have had
a white skin, but that chapter can be omitted in the liturgical order
of second lessons. The white saints will kindly consent to pray every
Sunday for all sorts and conditions of men, provided ‘the niggers’ are
taught to remain in their own place and not to intrude where they are
not wanted. They will live and die in the faith and communion of their
white fathers and white grandfathers, with no negroes on the sacred
premises, except possibly the coloured sexton, who must not under any
circumstances be a communicant, but merely a sweep. What arrangements
will be made for their benefit in the next world they cannot tell, but
they may at least indulge the pious hope that there will be a separate
‘nigger heaven’—an adjunct, like their own coloured convention, to the
white man’s paradise—a separate missionary jurisdiction with swarthy
angels and combination negro melodies.”
I would merely add, by way of comment, that Charleston and South
Carolina are by no means the most intolerant and intolerable places in
which the Southern negro is at present dwelling.
I have alluded to two suggested, but ineffective or impracticable, ways
out of the difficulty. Another scheme, from which in the early days of
the negro’s freedom much was expected, was the gradual fusion of the
races. Miscegenation, or intermarriage between whites and blacks, was,
for a season, the favourite prescription of theorists, especially in the
North, whence to this moment comes plenty of theory, with little or no
practical help. Another suggested remedy was education. If, said the
counsellors, you educate the negro thoroughly well, you will render him
as good a citizen as the white man. Let me deal separately with each of
these plans, as well as with yet another—namely, the surrender of the
Black Belt to the black, and the constitution of recognised Black States
as members of the Union. I will deal with them in the order in which
they appear to have found favour, and first with the least promising.
Surrender, no matter in what form it may be advocated and brought about,
involves the unjustifiable premise that the negro is fit for
self-government. It has never been proposed that the States of the Black
Belt, or any portion of them, shall be allowed independence. No one has
gone further than to suggest that the whites, or the great body of
whites, shall retire from them with indemnity. The relationship of the
States to the Union would remain as at present. The State government and
representation would simply be left to the negroes and the coloured
people, the rights of such whites as might elect to stay being, of
course, as much as possible secured. The lessons of history and
experience are, in the highest degree, discouraging for the success of
such a scheme, could it, which I very much doubt, be carried out in its
initial stages. Says Mr. J. A. Froude, in “The English in the West
Indies”:—
“There is a saying in Hayti that the white man has no rights which the
blacks are bound to recognise.... They can own no freehold property,
and exist only on tolerance. They are called ‘white trash.’ Black
dukes and marquises drive over them in the street and swear at
them.... Englishmen move about Jacmel as if they were ashamed of
themselves among their dusky lords and masters. The presence of
Europeans in any form is barely tolerated.”
And here is the same writer’s summary of the history of San Domingo:—
“St. Domingo, of which Hayti is the largest division, was the earliest
island discovered by Columbus, and the finest in the Caribbean Ocean.
The Spaniards found there a million or two of mild and innocent
Indians, whom ... they converted off the face of the earth, working
them to death in their mines and plantations. They filled their places
with blacks from Africa. They colonised, they built cities; they
throve and prospered for nearly two hundred years, when Hayti was
taken from them and made a French province. The French kept it till
the Revolution. They built towns, they laid out farms and sugar
fields, they planted coffee all over the island, where it now grows
wild. Vast herds of cattle roamed over the mountains, splendid houses
rose over the rich savannahs. The French Church put out its strength;
there were churches and priests in every parish. So firm was the hold
that they had gained that Hayti, like Cuba, seemed to have been made a
part of the old world, and as civilised as France itself. The
Revolution came, and the reign of Liberty. The blacks took arms; they
surprised the plantations; they made a clean sweep of the whole French
population.... The island being thus derelict, Spain and England both
tried their hands to recover it, but failed; ... and a black nation,
with a Republican Constitution, and a population, perhaps, of about a
million and a half of pure-blood negroes, has since been in
unchallenged possession, and has arrived at the condition which has
been described to us by Sir Spenser St. John.”
What that condition is has been painted in lurid, but not exaggerated,
colours by Sir Spenser, to whose book reference should be made. Mr.
Froude sufficiently sketches it in the following passages:—
“Morals in the technical sense they have none.”
“A religion which will keep the West Indian blacks from falling back
into devil-worship is still to seek,”
“In spite of schools and missionaries, 70 per cent. of the children
now born among them are illegitimate.”
“Behind the religiosity, there lies active and alive the horrible
revival of the Western African superstitions; the serpent-worship, and
the child sacrifice, and the cannibalism. The facts are notorious.”
“There is no sign, not the slightest, that the generality of the race
are improving either in intelligence or moral habits; all the evidence
is the other way.”
“Ninety years of negro self-government have had their use in showing
what it really means.... The movement is backward, not forward.”
Not only in St. Domingo has the experiment of negro self-government been
tried under pseudo-civilised conditions. It has been tried also in
Liberia, and with almost equally bad results. To-day in Liberia whites
are treated by the blacks much as blacks are treated by whites in the
South. A negro State has never yet shown itself worthy to rank on terms
of equality with a white one, and there are no symptoms that it will
ever reach that level. Diplomatic intercourse with such States cannot be
carried on under ordinary conditions; neither can commercial
transactions. Black rule means anarchy, and it invariably brings to the
front the fact that the negro hates the white as much as the white hates
him, and is even more ready than the white is to play the tyrant and the
oppressor. Life for a white in every existing negro State is well-nigh
unendurable. A fringe of negro States on the southern and south-eastern
borders of the Union would, therefore, be a perpetual danger to the
whole Federation.
Education is a supposed panacea that has been more widely advocated; and
amongst its ablest champions is Judge Tourgée. But education, although
it may in time civilise and soften the more naturally intelligent of the
coloured people, will, I am convinced, do very little for the
pure-blooded negro, the man with the facial angle of about 70 deg. You
cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and you cannot make a Solon
out of a person with an unsuitably constructed head. Coloured people and
blacks in the South have now for quite twenty years been more or less
subjected to the influences of education. Almost anyone who may have so
desired has been able during that period, and, indeed, for a longer
time, to obtain instruction of all kinds—technical, linguistic,
mathematical, scientific, and philosophical, as well as elementary. In
fact, there is in the South even less practical difficulty in the way of
the poor negro of genius, if such a being exist, than in the way of the
poor white of genius; for philanthropic people have established free
colleges and schools for him, and stand ready to give him all possible
encouragement to persevere and make a name and a fortune. Yet, in spite
of this, the pure-blooded negroes who have come to the front in any way
may be counted on one’s fingers—perhaps on the fingers of one hand. A
greater number of coloured people—mulattoes and cross-breeds of various
tinctures—have profited by the opportunities given. Among these, one of
the most noteworthy is Mr. B. K. Bruce, of Mississippi. He was born of
slave parents in Virginia, in 1841, and went to Mississippi in his
boyhood, subsequently removing to Missouri, but returning in 1869. His
education was limited, and while following the occupation of a planter,
he held the position of Sergeant-at-Arms of the State Senate for two
years, Sheriff and Tax Collector of Bolivar County for four years, a
Levée Commissioner for three years, and was elected to the U.S. Senate
in 1875. He now holds a responsible Government post at Washington.
Another notable coloured man is Mr. F. Douglass, who is many times
mentioned in these pages, and who is now United States Minister to
Hayti. He had previously been one of the San Domingo Commissioners; was
a trustee of the Howard University and of the Freedman’s Bank, and was
appointed United States Marshal for the District of Columbia by
President Hayes, and Recorder of Deeds for the District by President
Garfield. He is the fourth coloured Minister to Hayti, his predecessors
having been Messrs. E. D. Bassett, J. U. Langston, and J. E. W.
Thompson. Mr. R. B. Elliott, a coloured man who was born at Boston and
educated in England, has held several high positions in South Carolina,
including a seat in the Forty-second and Forty-third Congress, from
which he resigned. Mr. Pinchback, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, who
afterwards contested a seat in the Senate, is another of the leading
coloured men.
But these are not the individuals with the negro facial angle and the
full negro characteristics, neither do they form the majority of the
negro and negroid population. Moreover, they are, I am assured,
decreasing in numbers, and, although more intelligent than the pure
blacks, are, as a general rule, even less desirable as citizens. But of
this later. Suffice it to say that education has not produced such
results as might fairly be expected from it; and that the educated man
of colour, if severed from white influence and stimulus, seems to evince
an ineradicable tendency to “hark back” to the vices, the superstitions,
and the weaknesses of his ancestors; while, as I have already said,
education does not abolish race prejudice, and scarcely ameliorates it.
The educated black becomes doubly conscious of the contempt in which the
whites hold him and his race; while the white looks upon the educated
black as a doubly dangerous rival and possible enemy. In the meantime,
with every scrap of education that he assimilates, the black imbibes
increased anxiety to assume that position as a citizen which the white
is, above all things, determined that the coloured man shall never hold
in the South. Even the Boston _Transcript_, a Northern paper, recognises
this fact. “We have always said,” it declares, “that the very
improvement of the negroes’ condition socially makes worse the prospect
of quieting down that burning question. Naturally, the more they get the
more they want, and the more they will have, too. The only logical
position was to keep them slaves. Once citizens, they have as good right
as anybody to ride in your Pullman, or sit in your theatre or
restaurant, sleep in your hotel or church, or live in your street or
block. Lack of money is all that intervenes at present, and that will
not always.”
And Dr. S. M. Smith, D.D., of Columbia, South Carolina, writing in the
_Presbyterian Quarterly_ for October, 1889, takes the same view. His
conclusions are thus summed up by the Raleigh _State Chronicle_:—
“The patent panacea for all negro defects, education, does not mend
matters in the least; an ‘educated’ negro is just as much negro as
before, just the same raw hide volume with the incongruous addition of
a gilt edge; he is only a little more aggressively offensive than his
less ornate brother. Social complications are not at all lessened by
education, nor mitigated by ‘light complexions’ either.”
Miscegenation is the most widely favoured and venerable of what I may
call the quack nostrums for the cure of existing evils. The late Mr.
Henry Woodfin Grady, one of the truest friends that the negro ever had,
laid it down as an axiomatic condition of harmony between races “that
each race should earnestly desire a fusion of blood, in which all
differences would be lost.” The action of the natural law thus stated
has made white North America what it is to-day. But, as the author of
“An Appeal to Pharaoh” points out, the law that governs the
distribution, association, and conduct of all other living creatures
rules the action of men also. Birds and beasts, fishes, reptiles, and
insects—nay, trees, and flowers, and weeds—group themselves together
after their kind: and man is no exception to the universal rule. In
every land and clime, under whatever circumstances and conditions he may
be placed, he recognises and obeys nature by seeking his own kind,
avoiding every other, and warring with his dissimilar neighbour.
Families, classes, societies, tribes, nations form around some common
centre of agreement or likeness that unites the like and excludes the
unlike from the invisible but impassable circle. The map of the world is
a map of the larger groups. The history of the world is chiefly the
history of the formation, organisation, and contentions of these groups.
The history of North America is a particular demonstration of the action
of the law under consideration. Four centuries have not elapsed since
the white man first set his foot on the eastern shore of the New World.
Every step of his progress westward has been marked by the blood of the
dissimilar race, which he found there and drove before him. He sits on
the grave of the red man; he has shut the door in the face of the yellow
man from China; what shall he do with the black man from Africa?
Intermarry with him, say the quacks. But, to again quote Mr. Grady, “not
only do the two races not earnestly desire fusion, but both races are
pledged against it as the one impossible thing.” This is quite notorious
throughout the South, where it has even inspired legislation against
miscegenation; yet many humanitarian theorists in the North still put
forward intermarriage as the panacea.
I summarise here an interesting article which was contributed to
_Belford’s Magazine_ for September, 1889, by Mr. Cone on the
significance of racial colour. The writer attempts to prove that colour
of the skin is inseparably connected with the brain and higher faculties
of the individual, and that according to a fundamental law of Nature the
negro, being black, always has been, and for ever must remain, an
inferior grade of humanity. The alleged law, as stated by Mr. Cone, is
as follows:—“Whatever race or species is changeless from generation to
generation as to the colour of its skin, hair, and eyes—if it be man or
animal—or eyes and plumage, if it be bird, evinces low brain-power, is
‘inferior’; while that which is changeful from generation to generation
as to the colour of its skin, hair and eyes, or plumage, shows high
brain-power, is ‘superior.’ Or, more briefly: The invariable as to
racial colour is the ‘inferior’; the variable is the ‘superior’ race.”
After an elaborate investigation of attempts to domesticate wild birds
and wild animals, and of efforts to raise black men and red men to a
higher plane of civilisation, the conclusion is reached that all such
attempts have been absolute failures. The cases of Hayti and Jamaica are
cited to prove that the black man, when raised by a higher race to a
level of life which he was unable to himself attain, has never shown any
ability to maintain himself there; he “lacks the brain-fibre, the
brain-power, which is necessary to do so, and, left to himself, he
retrogrades, reverts.” The red Egyptian and the yellow Chinaman, though
more variable, and, therefore, of a higher type than the negro, are
forcible illustrations of arrested development. “Hybridism in animals,
and the sterility of miscegenation when pressed beyond certain
well-known limitations, are proof that Nature punishes in her own
effective way the violation of her laws, whether men have understood
those laws or not.” This fundamental law of Mr. Cone declares that
racial intellect, racial superiority and inferiority, are written in
racial colour; and the writer concludes by saying:—“If this be true,
then other conclusions inevitably follow, which a wise statesmanship,
sincere in purpose, lofty in motive, scholarly in grasp, and philosophic
in breadth of view, will not disregard.”
It is true that America has become a mighty nation from the
intermingling of races, but almost entirely from the intermingling of
races that belong to the Indo-Germanic stock. The more nearly allied the
races, the more successful has been the intermingling. English, Scotch,
Irish, Dutch, Germans, and Scandinavians have harmoniously united to
produce the American; but the Latins, as we see in Canada and Louisiana,
blend much less readily with the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, and continue to
hold aloof long after races more nearly akin have inextricably merged in
one composite but individual people. The French, the Italians, and the
Spaniards are those that thus hold aloof. Some of them seem to
intermarry—and this is peculiarly noticeable in Central and South
America—more readily with the native Indian, or even with the negro,
than with the Anglo-Saxon. In Paraguay, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, Salvador, Honduras, and Southern Mexico, for example, the mass of
the population is Indo-Spanish. It would seem as if the Southern
European does not possess the colour-antipathy as the pure white
possesses it; and, surely, his own dark colour lends plausibility to the
theory that he is one step nearer than the pure white is to the Indian
and negro stocks. But nowhere does the pure white, as represented by the
Anglo-Teutonic races, generally admit coloured races to social and
family equality. There are mulattoes in the United States, but nearly
every mulatto is the offspring not of marriage but of an irregular,
temporary, and disgraceful union. There are Eurasians in India, where,
after all, whites and coloured people are racially related; yet even
there most of the half-breeds are illegitimate. In Africa, in the
meanwhile, the Hottentot and the Bushman, instead of blending with the
whites, are vanishing. In Australia, too, and New Zealand, the
aboriginal inhabitant is disappearing fast. Race, more than anything
else, has to this day kept Central Africa a secret from the white world.
And the numerical superiority of the negroes in the Black Belt is, more
than anything else, responsible for the fact that the Black Belt is
almost a _terra incognita_ to the mass of Northerners, and for the
equally important fact that European and Northern brains and capital do
not go there as they go to the whiter but not richer West. In the South,
in the past five-and-twenty years, the negro has improved in very many
respects; but that makes no radical difference. He is still the negro,
and he always will be the negro.
Yet, in spite of these and other considerations that must be ever
present to the minds of all who know the South and are unprejudiced
observers of what is there for them to see, we find people persistently
advocating miscegenation as the certain cure for the evils of the
situation. Mr. Frederick Douglass, a mulatto, and, perhaps, the most
distinguished coloured American now living, takes a somewhat neutral
position. Writing in the _North American Review_ for May, 1886, on
miscegenation, he says:—“I am not a propagandist, but a prophet. While I
would not be understood as advocating the desirability of such a result,
I would not be understood as deprecating it.” But many whites have been
bolder. The opinion of the Rev. Dr. B. T. Tanner is that “whether the
whites and the blacks of the country shall mix is no longer an open
question, being settled by the fact that the mixing has already, and to
a large extent, taken place.... As we gaze,” he continues, “upon the
millions of whites and millions of blacks confronting each other, and as
we remember that where there is no association there can be no certain
amity, and that where there is no amity there can be no lasting peace,
we are made to ask, What will the harvest be? As there cannot be other
than one Government, so there must not be ultimately more than one
people. The union of which we so justly boast must comprehend both.” The
Rev. J. W. Hamilton, of Boston, is another prophet and advocate of
miscegenation. And the language of Prof. S. B. Darnell, of the Cookman
Institute, Jacksonville, is:—“However we may feel on the subject, the
stern logic of sequences will make, in the coming years, ‘our brother in
black’ a misnomer; and the diverse streams of blood will so mingle that
our posterity shall quote again, ‘God hath made of one blood all nations
of men.’” On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln, in his reply to Senator
Douglas in 1857, said, “There is a natural disgust in the minds of
nearly all white people at the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of
the white and black races.” And again:—“There is a physical difference
between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably for ever forbid
their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and,
inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I,
as well as Judge Douglas, am in favour of the race to which I belong
having the superior position.” And these prejudices belong not only to
the pure white branches of the great Indo-Germanic stock. In our West
Indian colonies there are about 10,000 coolies, of whom Mr. Froude
says:—“They are proud, and will not intermarry with the Africans. If
there is no jealousy, there is no friendship. The two races are more
absolutely apart than the white and the black.” Between the races in
America, as Judge Tourgée expresses it, “there is no equalisation, no
fraternity, no assimilation of rights, no reciprocity of affection.
Children may caress each other, because they are children. Betwixt
adults fewer demonstrations of affection are allowed than the master
bestows upon his dog. Ordinary politeness becomes a mark of shame. A
caress implies degradation. In all that region no man would stand in a
lady’s presence unless uncovered. Yet not a white man in its borders
dares lift his hat to a coloured woman in the street, no matter how pure
her life, how noble her attributes, or how deep his obligations to her
might be.”
If such be the prevailing sentiments among Southern white people, the
questioner may say, How then do you account for the mulattoes, thousands
of whom are found in and far beyond the limits of the Black Belt? The
point is one concerning which I am anxious to convey a very clear
understanding, for it is a most important point. There is, undoubtedly,
a large mixed population; and, as the Rev. Dr. T. B. Tanner has said,
“the mixing has already taken place.” It has taken place; it took place
amid conditions which have ceased to exist; and practically it takes
place no longer. It is in his assumption that the mixing process
continues, and in his implied assumption that the causative unions were
at any period and to any considerable extent legitimate ones, that Dr.
Tanner creates a false impression. Here are the facts, so far as I have
been able to ascertain them; and I have spared no pains in my efforts to
get at the bottom of them.
The mulatto, strictly classified, is the offspring of a pure white and a
pure black parent, and he is much less common than is generally
supposed. In nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand he is
of illegitimate birth, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
except, perhaps, in Louisiana, where there is a large population of
French descent and of modified anti-negro prejudices, he is a person no
longer a minor. I made inquiries in Charleston with the object of
discovering there a mulatto child of tender years, but in vain. I found
mulattoes of five-and-twenty or thirty, but I could find no children.
More than once in the street I thought that I had come upon what I was
looking for; but in every case the child proved to be not a genuine
mulatto, but simply a coloured child, the offspring, that is, of a
parent or parents with some white blood, but not the direct offspring of
black and white. The coloured people, as distinct from the pure-blooded
negroes, are everywhere common enough, and may be casually mistaken by
the unfamiliar observer for mulattoes. But the real mulatto is
comparatively rare, and is daily becoming rarer. Most of the coloured
people have less than one-half white blood; an overwhelming majority,
indeed, have less than one-quarter. A coloured person with but
one-eighth or one-sixteenth of negro blood is very rare indeed. The kind
of proportion that is common is ten-twelfths or fourteen-sixteenths, or
even more. All this points to the fact that miscegenation, although at
one time prevalent, has, as I have said, practically ceased. It also
points to the fact that, as the author of “An Appeal to Pharaoh” puts
it:—
“The process is never continued beyond a few steps further, and halts
abruptly at the point where it promises to prove effective by the
obliteration of the negro type in an individual who shall still
represent the union of the two diverse strains of blood. Such an
individual may, indeed, exist in America; but, if so, he wisely holds
his peace as to his pedigree. The octoroon is nearly white, and is
usually attractive in person. He is free to marry in his own class, or
below it; but he is as far from marrying a white woman as was his
blackest ancestor. And so of the mythical individual, whose case we
have just considered.”
The truth is that the mulatto, the quadroon, and the octoroon are
chiefly products of the slavery period. Since the war, the birth of a
mulatto, quadroon, or octoroon out of wedlock has been of the rarest
occurrence; and legislation and prejudice have limited, and well-nigh
put a stop to, the birth of these people in wedlock. Mulattoes
intermarry, and, in some cases, have intermarried for generations. In
more than one place in the South they, with occasional admixture of
quadroons, constitute a small, distinct community of highly respectable
people, living to themselves for the most part, and having as little in
common with their black as with their white neighbours; for white blood,
even in small quantities, “tells,” and the pride of the mulatto or
quadroon, as a rule, rebels as much at the idea of alliance with the
negro as does the pride of the white at the idea of alliance with
coloured or black. The mulatto originated in the desire of the slave
woman to enjoy the favour of her white master, and in the desire of the
master to add to his possessions—as well as, to some extent, in white
brutality and youthful dissoluteness, at a period when these could be
very freely indulged. The black slave woman and the white master have
disappeared, and all the conditions have changed. With the changed
conditions the birth of mulattoes, of quadroons, and of octoroons has
steadily grown rarer and rarer, until it threatens to cease altogether.
If miscegenation ever promised to solve the negro problem—and this I
doubt—emancipation hopelessly destroyed the prospect. Whatever
miscegenation there was, was entirely confined to white men and negro or
coloured women. The Southern white woman has had no part in it. In her
opinion it is, in all circumstances and conditions, loathsome and
abominable. Miscegenation, upon the only principles in accordance with
which it has ever been practised between the races in the United States,
is, after all, no real miscegenation at all. It was one-sided, it was
criminal, it involved the disowning of the child by the stronger of its
parents. Could any satisfactory admixture have been effected on such
terms? And there has never been the slightest sign of assimilation on
any other terms.
There is yet another aspect of the question, and that is, Is the
mulatto, the quadroon, the octoroon, a desirable product? It cannot be
denied that the intelligence, the general aptitude for affairs, the
business and political capacity, the æsthetic faculty, and the finer
qualities of the coloured man, are always closely proportionate to the
degree of whiteness of his skin. In the coloured man we continually find
a perception of artistic beauty in form, colour, and effect, and what
may be called a natural sense of decency and shame. These are foreign to
the negro nature; and their peculiar absence seems to widen the already
sufficiently broad gulf between pure black and pure white. In the
coloured man, again, we find the natural leader of the negro in all
movements, political, religious, and social. The only representative of
the coloured population who ever sat in the United States Senate was
nearly white; and in the Reconstruction period the masters of the
situation in the South were, not Northern whites and Southern negroes,
but Northern whites and Southern coloured men. The hybrid of the white
man’s begetting was then the white man’s scourge. Beyond a doubt, he is
intellectually a great improvement upon the black. But he is no nearer
the white than was his black mother. “If,” says the author of “An Appeal
to Pharaoh,” “the negro race were wholly supplanted on American soil by
a race of mulattoes, or even of octoroons, the race problem would be so
far from approaching a solution, that it would be at least as perplexing
and as fraught with present difficulty and promise of future trouble as
is the negro problem of to-day.” And, apart from this, the mulatto is
physically and constitutionally, and also to, I fear, a very large
extent, morally, a failure. Although both white and negro are long-lived
races, the mulatto, born of Anglo-Saxon and negro, very rarely attains
the age of fifty; and he is particularly and abnormally subject to
certain forms of disease. Moreover, there is a general and, I believe, a
not unfounded impression that nature refuses to perpetuate beyond two or
three generations this race of human hybrids. Dr. J. C. Knott, after
nearly fifty years of residence among the black and white races of the
South, declared mulattoes to be “the shortest-lived of any class of the
human family,” and that the product of the cross between the Anglo-Saxon
and the negro dies off before the dark stain can be washed out by
amalgamation; while Professor Drummond says, “Inappropriate hybridism is
checked by the law of sterility.” This last doctrine may, it is just
possible, not apply, or may only apply to a limited extent, to the
mulatto. There is, unfortunately, less room for doubt that, in the
South, people of mixed blood furnish a surprisingly and
disproportionately large quota to the criminal population. It was
estimated that in the Mississippi Penitentiary, on the 1st of December,
1885, there was one white for every 4,480 white inhabitants of the
State, one black for every 918 black inhabitants, and one “coloured” for
every 314 “coloured” inhabitants. I am not desirous of asking too much
attention to this particular estimate, which is open to error, for the
reason that, in the census reports, black and “coloured” people are
classed together; but I feel bound to say that, upon showing this
estimate to the superintendents of several convict establishments in the
South, I have been invariably told that, whether exact or inexact, it
might be accepted as expressive of the general truth. If, therefore, the
products of miscegenation be short life and excessive tendency to
disease and crime, is miscegenation, even supposing honourable and legal
miscegenation to be possible, a desirable way out of the difficulty? I
venture to think not. Honourable miscegenation, besides, is out of the
question.
One other solution has been proposed. It is, however, too important and
many-sided a scheme for me to deal with at the close of this already too
lengthy chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
THE IDEAL SOLUTION.
I have attempted to show that the negro problem in the Southern States
cannot be satisfactorily solved by the limitation of the suffrage, by
the surrender of any portion of the country to the control of the black
majority, by education of the coloured citizen, or by miscegenation of
the races. The central point of the situation is the presence of the
negro in the South. If he were not there, there would be no negro
difficulty. The solution, therefore, that alone promises to be
thoroughly effective is his removal. His mere dissemination throughout
the Union would not be sufficient. No scheme of emigration from the
South to the North and West can permanently benefit the negro or settle
the race question. The “colour line” is, as has been repeatedly shown,
even more clearly defined in the North than in the South. Everywhere in
the South, for example, one may see black and white cab-drivers, though
they do not love one another, plying indiscriminately for hire, black
and white bricklayers working on the same buildings, black and white
compositors setting up type at adjoining cases; but in most parts of the
North things are different. There, with very few exceptions, the negro
is not admitted to ordinary trade-union organisations; he is
remorselessly “crowded out” from every occupation and employment; and
his position is, upon the whole, worse than in Georgia or Louisiana. If
the seven or eight millions of coloured people were to-morrow scattered
equally over the States, the South, no doubt, would be relieved, but
neither the North and West nor the negro would be better off. A more
radical programme of removal must be adopted by any party that earnestly
desires alike the welfare of the inferior stock and the final solution
of the problem. There must be another exodus from Egypt, another
restoration of the captive tribes.
In its bare outline the policy with which I am about to deal is not new.
One of Thomas Jefferson’s most prophetic utterances was:—“Nothing is
more clearly written in the Book of Destiny than the emancipation of the
blacks; and it is equally certain that the two races will never live in
a state of equal freedom under the same Government, so insurmountable
are the barriers which nature, habit, and opinion have established
between them.”
Jefferson, who died nearly forty years before emancipation became an
accomplished fact, did not omit to prepare, so far as lay in his power,
for the evil which he saw approaching. With Henry Clay and others, he
founded the African Colonisation Society, which established on the west
coast of Africa the Negro Republic of Liberia, and, between 1820 and
1860, sent thither about 10,000 free coloured people. It may at once be
admitted that the colony has not been a conspicuous success, for the
American immigrants and their descendants now hardly number 5,000 souls,
and, according to Mr. Charles H. J. Taylor, a late American Minister to
the Republic, the place is to-day “a land of snakes, centipedes, fever,
miasma, poverty, superstition, and death.” But the comparative failure
of the Liberia scheme is due, in my humble opinion, rather to the
principles in accordance with which it was carried out than to any
inherent and necessary unfitness of the negro for colonisation. I shall
later point out what appears to me to be the weak points in the
Constitution of Liberia, as well as in that of Hayti. If they lie where
I suspect they do, it is only natural that Jefferson and his associates
and successors should have overlooked them.
Nor were Jefferson and his friends the only ones who, early in the
century, sought to fend off the looming negro difficulty. In 1825
Senator Rufus King, of New York, was so far-seeing as to introduce to
the United States Senate a resolution declaring that “the whole public
land of the United States, with the net proceeds of all future sales
thereof, shall constitute and form a fund which is hereby appropriated;
and the faith of the United States is hereby pledged that the said fund
shall be inviolably applied to aid the emancipation of such slaves
within any of the United States, and to aid the removal of such slaves
and the removal of such free persons of colour in any of the United
States, as by the laws of the States respectively shall be allowed to be
emancipated, to any territory or country without the limits of the
United States.”
Senator King was far in advance of his day and generation, and, not
unnaturally, his motion came to nothing; but it is very likely indeed
that, had it been carried, there would at the present moment be no
considerable number of negroes in North America. The sum of money which
under his scheme would already have become available for the removal of
the coloured people exceeds £50,000,000 sterling, exclusive of interest,
and the lands still undisposed of are worth, at a moderate computation,
a hundred millions more.
Nothing practical, however, save the Liberia experiment, was attempted
in Mr. King’s day, or has been attempted since, towards the final
solution of a problem which for a generation has been yearly growing
graver and more dangerous.
It looks now as if the moment were about to arrive when either the
question must be peaceably settled or it will settle itself by violence;
and it is, therefore, worth while to consider whether the most radical
and permanent solution of the difficulty is practicable, and, supposing
it to be so, how it may, even at this late hour, be accomplished without
force and injustice.
First, let me premise that the United States, as a whole, and not merely
the South, owes an enormous debt to the negro race. Everyone admits that
the institution of slavery was a crime against humanity; but everyone
does not remember that for a century and more the North was _particeps
criminis_. Some aspects of her responsibility will be found dealt with
in the Appendix on Slavery in the North. It is too often forgotten that
Southern slavery, up to the time of emancipation, existed under and was
protected by the laws of the Union.
The debt owing to the blacks is manifold. Something is due to those who,
against their will, were dragged from their homes, subjected to the
untold horrors of the middle passage, and forced to labour, unrequited,
for strangers. What the horrors of the middle passage were is hinted at
rather than told in the log-book of Her Majesty’s ship _Skipjack_,
which, in 1835, captured the Portuguese slaver _Martha_, with 447 slaves
on board. The _Martha_ had left Loango forty-three days before for
Brazil with a freight of 790 slaves, of whom 353, or nearly 45 per
cent., had perished from the tortures and miseries of the voyage. These
tortures and miseries were not less, we may be sure, fifty or one
hundred years earlier. Something, again, is due to those who, in the
land of their captivity, were deprived by law of education, of the
privilege of marriage, and of the guardianship of their children. More,
perhaps, is due to those who, in support of the triumphant principles of
the land of their captivity, shed their blood. As many as 300,000 people
of colour took arms during the Civil War. And thankful recognition, if
nothing beyond, is owing by the South to the subject race which, in the
hour of national adversity, instead of rising to complicate the troubles
of the Confederacy, was loyal, and even helpful, to the dominant class.
There are other grounds of indebtedness, but they have been so fully
indicated in the course of this work that I need not again specify them.
My only objects here are to insist upon the fact that a heavy debt has
been incurred, and to point out that the time has not yet come when the
United States can say, “We are doing something tangible towards paying
it off.”
In considering the practicability of the removal from the United States
of the blacks and coloured people, one must bear in mind the following
questions:—
Is the negro willing to go?
Can the negro be dispensed with?
How can he be removed?
Whither can he be sent?
First let me attempt to offer a reply to the question, “Is the negro
willing to go?” I believe that he is, but he can best answer for
himself. The Rev. T. S. Lee, a coloured clergyman of Charleston,
speaking on Emancipation Day, 1890, said:—
“I believe that the ultimate solution of the so-called race problem
will be emigration, from necessity, if not from choice.... For two
people so distinct from each other in their physical structure, and
between whom there are naturally such insurmountable barriers, to
develop on separate and distinct lines, dwelling together here, is
about as reasonable as for two kings to reign on the same throne at
one and the same time.... We make a great mistake when we suppose that
the Anglo-Saxon gave us our enfranchisement for the love he had for
us ... He did it because he thought he could use us.... It is a
mistaken idea for us to kneel down to the whites. The Anglo-Saxon and
the black man cannot work together; one or the other will have to
leave, and I am somewhat of a believer in the tale about the Lord’s
fire. The fire will not burn the people, but it will be so warm that
our people will have to move on or get burnt; and I rather believe
that they will move on.... We must show our independence, and the
sooner we do this the better. Let some of us leave—go to Africa if
necessary—and show that we can get along without the Anglo-Saxon, and,
by this spirit of independence, make him learn and appreciate our
value. Independence and emigration are, in my opinion, the only
solutions to this great question.”
And Mr. Lee does not stand alone. Bishop H. M. Turner, of Atlanta,
Georgia, a leader among the negro Methodists, said, in the course of a
public speech in 1889, that nothing but poverty had kept his people
where they were, and that nothing but actual departure from the country
could cure existing evils.
And a few days later, he said, with reference to the Morgan Bill which
was then before Congress:—
“May God grant that the Bill may pass. The white people brought us
here against our will. Now they ought to provide for us to leave if we
desire. Besides, we must work out our destiny anyhow, and if a portion
of us think we can do it better elsewhere, let the nation help us to
try it. If the Bill meant compulsory expatriation, we would fight it
to the death; but, as it is voluntary upon the part of the negro, let
it pass as soon as possible. The negro at best is but a scullion here,
and he can be no less in Africa. I am tired of negro problems, lynch
law, mob rule, and continual fuss, and millions of other negroes are
tired of it. We want peace at some period in our existence, and if we
cannot have it here, where we were born and reared, let that portion
of us who choose to try another section of the world have a little
help. This nation owes the negro forty billion of dollars any way; so
give us a little to emigrate upon.”
Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden, formerly of the West Indies and more recently
of Sierra Leone, is another distinguished negro who advocates negro
emigration from the States. More than this, in November, 1889, a negro
colonisation society was established in Augusta, Georgia, to promote
emigration to Africa. At about the same time a wholesale emigration of
negroes to Mexico was projected, and a negro delegation visited the city
of Mexico to make arrangements for it; while, a little earlier, a large
scheme of negro migration from the States to the Argentine Republic was
extensively advocated by most of the negro journals of the South.
Unfortunately, neither Mexico nor the Argentine Republic wants the
negro. The Mexican newspapers, as with one voice, bitterly attacked the
scheme, and called upon their Government to be patriotic, and not to
countenance a plan which would bring into the Republic a race alien in
blood and language. And the Buenos Ayres _Standard_ said:—“The darkey is
destined to give the United States far more trouble some day than the
detested heathen Chinee; and it would be really too cool of Jonathan to
ask us here to help him out of the unsavoury mess.” The _Prensa_, a
Spanish newspaper of the same city, declared upon the same occasion:—
“It cannot be comprehended that a country proud, as ours is, of its
wonderful and rapid advancement should commit the folly of introducing
an element of obstruction, offensive both to sight and smell, and with
marked tendencies to laziness. The United States would ridicule South
America if the latter were to accept this Greek gift.”
But these remarks do not touch the question of the negro’s readiness to
migrate. There is really no doubt that he is quite ready, provided
always that migration will better him, and provided also that he can
accomplish it without serious immediate loss to himself.
Can he, then, be spared? The answer, I think, is “Yes.” The Birmingham,
Alabama, _Age-Herald_ took up the question in June, 1889, and thus
expressed itself:—
“In the lowlands of the Mississippi delta, the river bottoms of
Arkansas and Louisiana, the Alabama black belt, and the South Carolina
coast, negro labour may seem indispensable; but this is simply because
the big plantation system exists in those sections. It would be a
blessing to the South if the big plantation system could everywhere be
broken up, and small farms, occupied and cultivated by thrifty white
owners, substituted. In Texas, in Georgia—in all parts of the South,
in fact, except those enumerated above—the white farmers work their
own fields, and work them to much better advantage than those tenanted
out to negroes.... The negro can be easily dispensed with, and if he
stays in the South it is painful to conceive what must be the
inevitable consequence.... The negro must go, or those Southern
communities where he is found in such large numbers will go to
something worse than perdition.”
Upon this the Memphis _Avalanche_ of June 8th, 1889, remarked:—
“We have no hesitation in endorsing as true everything the
_Age-Herald_ has said. There are hundreds and thousands of white
labourers in the cotton fields of the South to-day. In Texas, where an
immense amount of cotton is grown, a negro is frequently not seen in a
day’s ride.”
The New Orleans _Times-Democrat_, one of the most respectable and
influential of Southern journals, on June 17th, 1889, took the same view
in very decided terms, and added:—
“There is no portion of the South where the whites cannot live, where
they do not work more intelligently and better than the negroes, and
where they do not produce larger crops _per capita_. The South would
be more productive, richer, and more prosperous in every way if it
were peopled altogether by white men.”
The Galveston, Texas, _News_ held similar language; so did the
Charleston _News and Courier_; so did the Atlanta _Constitution_, the
Nashville _American_, the Richmond _Dispatch_, the Arkansas _Democrat_,
the New Orleans _Picayune_, and, in brief, all the leading newspapers of
the South. Indeed, I know of no important exception. Concerning the
filling of the gap which would be created by the removal of the negro,
the Greenville, South Carolina, _News_ of March 17th, 1889, had already
said:—
“If we can keep the white people there will be no lack of labour and
population. The natural increase may be trusted to occupy every acre
of available ground without the coming of new citizens; but we might
reasonably hope for a great inflow of white immigration to follow the
tide of coloured emigration.”
Colonel Stokes, a representative Southern, writing on the same subject,
argues forcibly and convincingly against the assumption that the negro
is an essential element in cotton raising. “It is generally admitted by
all who are acquainted with the matter that the negroes are the most
inefficient of all labourers in nearly all the fields of labour. The
Southern negroes cultivate an average of not more than six or eight
acres to the hand; the Northern farmer cultivates forty to sixty acres.
The latter uses a great variety of improved farming implements. The
negro cannot be taught to use any other than the primitive types he has
been long accustomed to. Still, the planter is dependent upon the negro
to till his fields simply because the negro is here and cannot be got
rid of, and white labour is not available in any sufficient numbers
while the field is so occupied. But it is certain that if the negro
cotton-raiser could everywhere be replaced by white men, the cotton
region would wear a very different aspect.”
There are even signs that the negro is being dispensed with already, and
that, if he remain, his position as a labourer will deteriorate rather
than improve. The _Forum_ for December, 1889, contained a powerful
article on “The Race Problem,” by Professor Scomp, of Emory College,
Georgia. The writer, in summing up, says:—
“Sadly, yet with perfect conviction, we are driven to the inevitable
conclusion that if the negro’s citizenship and his social and business
privileges are to have play and development, it must be upon another
soil than that of the whites. As equals, the races cannot and will not
exist together.”
And, writing privately to Dr. E. W. Blyden, Professor Scomp thus
explains his views as to one aspect of the negro’s future in the
States:—
“One feature which I regard as ominous to the future of most of the
Southern negroes is the steady and rapid improvement in machinery in
all departments of the cotton-plantation industry; _e.g._, less than
two months ago there was exhibited at the Georgia State Fair, at
Macon, a machine for chopping cotton, by which one man, upon a kind of
buggy plough, could in one day do the work, by horse-power, of more
than a dozen ordinary choppers. Such machinery, generally introduced,
must, for the most part, put an end to the plantation negro’s summer
work and his means of subsistence. Many efforts, too, are making at
the invention of a proper cotton-picking machine, and, though this has
not yet succeeded to any great degree, American industry will
undoubtedly prove equal to the task of invention. When that day comes
the mass of Southern negroes will be practically out of an occupation
and without a livelihood.”
Apart from this, the negro is now doing much less in the South than he
used to do. The Charleston _News and Courier_, which made a careful
investigation of this matter in South Carolina, county by county, a few
years ago, found that 30 per cent. of the cotton was raised by white and
70 per cent. by coloured labour. In Mississippi the State census of
1880, taken coincidentally with the United States census, showed that
328,568 bales were produced by white and 627,240 bales by negro labour.
In these States, with large negro majorities, nearly a third of the
cotton crop was raised by the whites. Judging by these figures, it is
safe to say that, including the comparatively white States of Texas and
Arkansas, very nearly half the cotton is raised by the whites, whereas
thirty years ago not over 400,000 bales, or one-tenth the crop, was
grown by them.
If, as would appear to be the case, the negro be willing to migrate and
can be dispensed with, the next questions for consideration are—How can
he be removed? And whither can he be sent? The two questions are
intimately allied, and may best be examined together. I think that a
rough key to one of them has been furnished by Mr. J. A. D. Mitchell,
who, writing on January 11th, 1890, to the Cleveland, Ohio, _Gazette_, a
newspaper conducted by and in the interests of coloured people, says:—
“Let the United States Government assume a protectorate over such
portions of the African Continent as are not already provided for,
and, to enforce the claim, call for 100,000 or more American negro
volunteers to assist, not only in the abolition of the slave traffic,
but also in Christianising and reclaiming the African negro from
heathenism and idolatry. I claim that climatic and other influences
preclude the possibility of the white man accomplishing much without
the aid and influence of the negro.... The necessity for forced
emigration or colonisation would (either being distasteful as well as
impracticable) be supplanted by a voluntary uprising of the negro to
participate in reclaiming the land of his forefathers.”
There is here, I really believe, the germ, though only the germ, of a
sound and useful scheme. It is not likely that the United States
Government will, in our day, assume onerous protectorates in other
continents; and it is not, I am convinced, desirable that, in the future
home of the negro, the emigrant shall live under institutions similar to
those which at present contribute so much to his discomfort. If the
black were to move to what would practically be an American foreign
possession, he would scarcely improve his position. He would still find
himself on nominal equality with, but in actual inferiority to, the
white governing powers. If not, he would have to govern himself; and for
this task the negro is peculiarly unfitted. It is for this reason that
Hayti and Liberia have proved failures.
Where I detect the true ring in Mr. Mitchell’s crude suggestion is in
his proposal that the negro shall be given not only a country, but also
a stimulus to make himself worthy of the boon. In one or other of these,
to my mind, absolutely essential features, all the remaining projects of
negro migration that have come under my notice are lacking.
Several Bills, aspiring to deal in an adequate manner with the race
problem, have lately been brought before the notice of the United States
Senate. Senator Butler, of South Carolina, asked for the appropriation
of five millions of dollars in aid of negro emigration generally.
Senator Gibson, of Louisiana, advocated the acquirement, as the negro’s
future home, of extra-Union territory. Senator Morgan, of Alabama,
brought forward a scheme of African colonisation; and Senator Call, of
Florida, revived the old project of opening negotiations with Spain to
secure the establishment in Cuba of a negro republic.
But all these legislators have missed the one important point. You
cannot, without the use of force, ensure anything approaching to a
general exodus of a whole race, unless you first provide the people with
high aims, and also hold out to them a reasonable hope of improved
political, social, and financial conditions. Had the Israelites seen
nothing better than Egypt before them, they would never have quitted the
land of Goshen; had the Babylonian captives not looked to the rebuilding
of the Temple, it is doubtful whether many of them would have availed
themselves of Cyrus’s permission to return to Palestine.
Speaking in the Senate on the subject of the Butler Bill, Senator Wade
Hampton, who has been one of the most honoured and successful Governors
of South Carolina, the blackest State in the Union, said, on January
30th, 1890:—
“I have expressed the opinion that the separation of the white and
coloured races in the United States would be of permanent benefit to
both.... I recognise as fully as anyone the political rights of the
coloured people, and amongst these rights is that paramount one of
every citizen of the Republic to choose his own home. The forcible
expulsion of the negroes would not only be unlawful, but would be
impolitic, unjust and cruel.... No thoughtful patriotic man would
contemplate any such action. But whilst patriotism, wisdom, and an
enlarged philanthropy dictate these views, it may still be a question
whether some feasible plan cannot be adopted by which such coloured
people as desire to seek a new home, where, under their own laws and
their own government, they could work out their own destiny free from
contact with the white race, could not receive the generous and
fostering assistance of this great and rich Government.”
Like his brother legislators, Senator Hampton fails to grasp the
necessity of giving to the negroes a motive to induce them to leave the
States; like them, too, he appears to be of opinion that, no matter
whither the negro may remove, he must be, if not an American subject, at
least a self-governing individual. On both these points, I venture to
think, his attitude is a wrong one; but on the other point which is
dealt with in this extract from his speech he is right. The American
Government ought, in recognition of its indebtedness, as well as from
politic consideration of its own best interests, to be prepared to
assist the proposed negro emigration; and on that point Senators Butler,
Gibson, Morgan, and Call are in practical agreement with Senator
Hampton.
One of the most conspicuous characteristics of the negro is, as I have
already had occasion to point out, his childishness. Referring to the
negroes of Africa, Mr. H. M. Stanley, writing in December last to _The
Times_, said:—
“If one regards these natives as mere brutes, then the annoyances that
their follies and vices inflict are, indeed, intolerable. In order to
rule them and to keep one’s life amongst them, it is needful
resolutely to regard them as children, who require, indeed, different
methods of rule from English or American citizens, but who must be
ruled in precisely the same spirit, with the same absence of caprice
and anger, the same essential respect to our fellow-men.”
Another recent writer has said of them:— “They are children; children
naughty or children good; pleased or angry; children to be ruled firmly,
treated kindly; but always, at bottom, children.” And everyone who knows
thoroughly the African negro, either in Africa or in America, can have
no other estimate of his character.
This being so, is it reasonable, on the one hand, to elevate the negro,
as he has been elevated in America, to a level of political and legal
equality with the Caucasian; or, on the other hand, to expect this child
of nature to properly govern himself? The experiment of equality has
failed in America; the experiment of self-government has failed in
Hayti, in Liberia, and wherever else it has been tried. Surely, then, it
is as necessary, in the experiment of the future, to avoid placing the
negro on a pedestal which he has proved himself incapable of occupying
as it is to avoid enslaving him, oppressing him, or in any way unfairly
treating him. If my contentions be sound, it results that the experiment
of the future must be conducted with due regard to the following
conditions:—
1. The emigrating negro must be offered a country in which he may pursue
high aims, enjoy a prospect of improved political, social, and financial
_status_, and find climate and employment suited to his needs.
2. He must not govern, but be governed. At the same time he must not be
oppressed, either physically or morally; and there must be no restraint
upon his improvement and advancement.
3. His emigration must be assisted, either by those who owe him a debt
or by those who will benefit by his migration, or by both.
Accepting the above conditions as postulates, I may now definitely
indicate what, after a long and careful study of the problem in its
various aspects, seems to be the only solution that will be alike just
and permanent.
The country that is most suitable for the negro is, beyond all cavil,
that central belt of Africa which lies between the Sahara and the Tropic
of Capricorn, and which includes the Congo Free State, Senegambia,
Liberia, the British and German possessions on the Gulf of Guinea,
Sierra Leone, Gaboon, Angola, Damaraland, Mozambique, Zanzibar, and the
territories of the various British and German African companies. The
greater part of this belt is the negro’s own country, the place whence
his ancestors were kidnapped, or in which his race still dwells; and, so
far as civilisation is concerned, nearly all of it is, to this day,
virgin soil.
The past fifty years have witnessed the first serious attempts on the
part of civilisation to open up this immense district, the riches and
fertility of which no one, even now, is in a position to estimate. Very
little progress has been made. The climate and general conditions are,
over much of the tract, unsuitable for the majority of Europeans.
European influences, nevertheless, are almost everywhere dominant; and
almost everywhere there exists the framework, though not all the
machinery, of just government. The crying need of the situation is more
civilisation—civilisation not of a very advanced or cultured variety,
but rather civilisation of a kind which, not being too much superior to
native habits and modes of thought, and being, nevertheless, of a
moderately progressive type, may first, if properly encouraged and led
by white influence, capture the Africans and then gradually raise them
with itself to higher planes.
Who are more suited to apply such modest civilisation to the blacks of
Africa than the blacks of America? Africa, as a whole, will never be a
white man’s country. It will not, therefore, be the scene of such race
jealousies as torment the Southern States of the American Union.
At the same time, Africa, it is tolerably certain, will always have the
advantage of white rule, and of a kind of white rule, moreover, that
will not possess the irksome defects of white rule as it now exists in
America. In no British colony, for example, is there any reason why a
capable negro should not raise himself to high position and honour. In
no British colony, on the other hand, does the negro govern. And I think
it may also be said that in every British colony in which he is to be
found the negro is a fairly happy and contented person. It is a great
mistake to suppose, as many people do, that the negro objects to be
governed, and to be governed firmly. On the contrary, he likes it,
provided always that the government be fair as well as firm. Colonel
Shepard, an acknowledged advocate of the negro, admits, with regard to
the present condition of Hayti, that the whole business is a fine
illustration of the futility of introducing republican institutions to a
country whose people are uneducated, untrained in affairs, and incapable
of self-government.
Nor is the negro hopelessly enamoured of the suffrage. He clings to it
in the United States, because there it constitutes almost his only badge
of humanity; but to those who will freely concede his humanity he will
as freely surrender the suffrage.
By a wholesale migration, and properly conducted, of Southern negroes to
Africa, America would be relieved, and Africa would be benefited.
Already this fact has, to a limited extent, been recognised and acted
upon. In 1884 a plan for the introduction of Southern negro labour to
the Congo district was submitted to the King of the Belgians by an
American, Colonel George W. Williams; and I believe I am correct in
saying that Colonel Williams was in consequence empowered to engage
twelve clerks, accountants, and storekeepers at 125f. a month, and
twelve mechanics and engineers at from 200f. to 300f. a month,
transportation, board, lodging, and medical attendance to be provided by
the Congo Free State. Five years later, in 1889, the King of the
Belgians made application to the United States for twenty-four
professional men and artisans to go to the Congo as representatives of
the trained and educated American negro. His Majesty’s agent visited,
among other places, Shaw University, at Raleigh, North Carolina, a
remarkably well-conducted college for coloured students. The principal,
Dr. H. M. Tupper, declared his firm belief that thousands of American
negroes would, within a few years, go to the Congo country; and he said
that he recognised in the opportunity a grand means of permanently
improving the condition of many coloured people.
If the American negro were shown, as he easily might be shown, first,
that his exodus to Africa would result in vast good to his race, and
would open to him an honourable mission as a civiliser; next, that the
proceeding would result in a general amelioration of his own condition;
and finally, that in Africa he would escape from the discomforts and
persecutions that hem in his career in America; and if, at the same
time, he were offered aid to enable him to migrate to and establish
himself on the soil of his fathers, I do not doubt that he would leave
America, not merely in his thousands, but in his millions. He desires,
above all things, a country and an aim in life. Give him those, and he
will seize them gladly. But it is useless to counsel him to go to
Africa, or elsewhere, unless you also hold out to him an object to be
attained. And even a grand object will not alone induce him to move. He
is, as a rule, poor. His investments, such as they are, are all in
America. It is necessary not only to assist him to move and settle, but
also to pay him generously for the little that he must surrender.
It is impossible, while considering this scheme, to avoid thinking,
again and again, of the parallelism of the exodus of the Israelites, and
of the Biblical conclusion, “And they spoiled the Egyptians.” The
Egyptians, like the Americans, had incurred a great debt to their
bondsmen, and, like the Americans, they sought to evade it, and suffered
bitterly in consequence. But the payment was inevitable in Goshen, and
it is inevitable in the United States. In Goshen it was paid in the form
of spoils, surrendered in panic by a people who, at the last, were glad
to be rid of their captives at any cost. How will it be paid in America?
One cannot foresee, but it is quite certain that it is not yet too late
for it to be voluntarily tendered in cold blood, and to be gratefully
accepted; and it is reasonable to suppose that delay in payment will not
lessen but rather increase the amount—be it of treasure, blood, misery,
or unrest—to be ultimately paid.
It would seem, therefore, that principles of ordinary economy, as well
as of common justice, indicate that an effort should be made to pay off
the negro as soon as possible.
It cannot be said that the Union has any lack of means. Her actual
indebtedness at the conclusion of the Civil War was, roughly speaking,
£551,286,000; it is now only £187,115,000, and between June 30th and
October 1st, 1890, it was reduced by £14,537,000. In twenty-five years
the Federal Debt has been lessened by £364,171,000, or at the average
rate of over fourteen and a half millions sterling per annum; and the
annual surplus available for reduction is now, as a rule, so much larger
than it was a few years ago, while the debt remaining is of such very
manageable proportions, that very little hardship to the United States
would result from a temporary diversion—say, for thirty years—of a
portion of the surplus from the purposes of the reduction of the Federal
Debt to the payment of interest and gradual payment of principal of a
special series of negro emigration and settlement loans.
It is calculated that an annual sum of twelve or fourteen millions
sterling might thus, without undue pinching, be diverted; and this
represents a very large capital amount—an amount which would probably be
quite sufficient, with a certain quota of aid from outside, not only to
decently transport, but to comfortably establish in Africa, every
pure-blooded negro now on United States territory.
It might not be also sufficient to buy out the negro; but that might
justly be assigned as a duty, in whole or in part, to the individual
States concerned, seeing that they are more immediately interested than
is the nation at large in getting rid of him, and that the expenditure
to be incurred would sooner or later be returned to the States in the
shape of payments on the re-sale of lands and buildings now belonging to
the negroes.
That the United States have not already entered upon some such course is
rather remarkable; for they have spent scores of millions in the payment
of debts which are less pressing, and they have, indeed, been so
generous in certain directions as to have incurred the reproach of
unwarrantable extravagance. They have over half a million names on their
pension-roll, and they pay the pensioners more than twenty millions a
year, in spite of the fact that most of the persons who benefit had no
legal claim upon the country at the time when the services in respect of
which pensions are now paid were rendered. The pensions are not, as
pensions are in England, deferred pay; they are compensations and
gratuities. The Union has been lavish with them; but the Governments
which have granted them have always looked forward to a return in the
shape of political support, and so the sums disbursed have been regarded
as profitable investments.
Hitherto, there is no doubt, American politicians as a body have not
discovered that any profit can result from the payment of the nation’s
indebtedness to the negro; and that is the reason why they have not
dealt with the negro as they have dealt with the soldier.
But will there be no profit? The South is now stagnant under the incubus
of the negro.
According to Governor Lee, of Virginia, the negro does not “pay” as a
citizen. The Greenville _News_ goes so far as to make the following
estimate of the results which would follow upon the removal of
two-thirds of the present coloured population from South Carolina:—
“We should lose,” it says, “$50,000 to $75,000, which is probably a
full estimate of the total amount of taxes paid by coloured people;
the cultivation of some land, the production of some cotton, for a
time. We should have about $175,000 of the amount now used for
coloured public schools for the use of white schools, nearly doubling
the present terms and adding much to the facilities and comforts of
teachers and scholars. We should have in the penitentiary about 100
convicts instead of 800. Our criminal courts would sit on an average
from a day to a day and a half a week, nine-tenths of their time being
now occupied by trying coloured persons. Our gaols would have about
one-fifth of the inmates they now have, nineteen-twentieths of the
prisoners now fed and kept at the cost of the taxpayers being
coloured. The lunatic asylum would have one-half its present
population and would cost one-half of what it now costs. The county
poor-houses would contain one-half, or less, of their present
population. The trial justices would have, on an average, about a case
a month. These calculations are from the actual figures. What we
should gain in the way of keeping white people who are now crowded out
by coloured competition, the improvement of lands by intelligent and
careful cultivation, and the incoming of white mechanics and farmers,
are matters of further estimation.”
The Union is divided, and it is the presence of the negro that causes
the division. Nearly one-eighth of the population of the Union is of
alien race, and, besides being hopelessly alien, is oppressed,
discontented, and dangerous. These are evils which might be abolished to
the general profit. And worse evils lurk in the future. The prosecution
of a race war would not be cheaper than the promotion of a negro exodus.
The severance from the Union of six or eight States would be vastly more
weakening to the nation as a whole. In some form the debt must be paid.
Nature has never yet admitted the plea of any Statute of Limitations in
cases like the one under discussion. It were well, then, to make a
settlement while it can still be made peacefully and, comparatively
speaking, cheaply.
If America would do its duty by the negro, those civilised nations which
have established themselves in Africa would, in pursuance of their own
interests, aid her. Great Britain, Germany, and France would each and
all welcome the immigration to their African possessions of large and
leavening bodies of American blacks. Not long ago Sir Alfred Moloney,
Governor of Lagos, received a deputation from “the Brazilian and
Havannah repatriates in the colony of Lagos,” and was assured that all
the negroes of Brazil wished to return to the country of their
ancestors. In reply, Sir Alfred Moloney said that he had induced the
commercial world to take an interest in the project, and that the
African Steamship Company had engaged to provide improved and cheaper
facilities for negro immigrants from Brazil. He welcomed the idea of
“repatriation,” and would encourage it. Much more, no doubt, would he
welcome the idea of the “repatriation” of the immeasurably more
civilised and less debauched American negro. The black, it is true, will
not do much good for himself anywhere without white superintendence, but
there is no reason why such superintendence as is necessary should not
be forthcoming, and, if it be once understood that the salvation of
Africa lies with the negro even more than with the white, there is every
ground for believing that the American negro will rise bravely to the
occasion.
Even in a greater degree than in the African possessions of Great
Britain, Germany, and France does there appear to be a career for the
American negro in the Congo Free State. The author of “An Appeal to
Pharaoh” has indicated that State as the American negro’s promised land.
A copy of the book was recently given to Mr. H. M. Stanley, a man who,
having spent parts of his life not only in the Dark Continent but also
in Louisiana, knows the negro both in America and in Africa. The volume
drew from the traveller a very interesting letter, from which I extract
the following:—
“There is space enough in one section of the Upper Congo basin to
locate double the number of the negroes of the United States without
disturbing a single tribe of the aborigines now inhabiting it. I refer
to the immense Upper Congo forest country, 350,000 square miles in
extent, which is three times larger than the Argentine Republic, and
one and a half times larger than the entire German Empire, embracing
224,000,000 acres of umbrageous forest land, wherein every unit of the
7,000,000 negroes might become the owner of nearly a quarter square
mile of land. Five acres of this, planted with bananas and plantains,
would furnish every soul with sufficient subsistence—food and wine.
The remaining twenty-seven acres of his estate would furnish him with
timber, rubber, gums, dye-stuffs, for sale. There are 150 days of rain
throughout the year. There is a clear stream every few hundred yards.
In a day’s journey we have crossed as many as thirty-two streams. The
climate is healthy and equable, owing to the impervious forest which
protects the land from chilly winds and draughts. All my white
officers passed through the wide area safely. Eight navigable rivers
course through it. Hills and ridges diversify the scenery and give
magnificent prospects. To those negroes in the South accustomed to
Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, it would be a reminder of their
own plantations without the swamps and the depressing influence of
cypress forests. Anything and everything might be grown in it, from
the oranges, guavas, sugarcane, and cotton of sub-tropical lands to
the wheat of California and the rice of South Carolina. If the
emigration were prudently conceived and carried out, the glowing
accounts sent home by the first settlers would soon dissipate all fear
and reluctance on the part of the others. But it is all a dream. The
American capitalists, like other leaders of men, are more engaged in
decorating their wives with diamonds than in busying themselves with
national questions of such import as removing the barrier between the
North and the South. The ‘open sore’ of America—the race question—will
ever remain an incurable fester. While we are all convinced that the
Nessus shirt which clings to the Republic has maddened her, and may
madden her again, it is quite certain that the small effort needed to
free themselves for ever from it will never be made.”
I am inclined to be more sanguine than Mr. Stanley was when he wrote
that letter. Some solution of the race question cannot be long deferred,
and surely there is enough latent justice and prudence in the American
people to induce them to render the inevitable solution a peaceable and
equitable one.
In a still later utterance on the subject Mr. Stanley has taken a
cheerier view. The Congo Government, he declares, is favourable, and the
laws are calculated to promote happiness and content. Whites cannot
colonise the State, since a white man living in the Congo Valley for
three years expends ten years of vitality, while women cannot retain
health.
“With negroes forming the majority of its citizenship, the State
would, with proper encouragement, make remarkable development, and, in
time, become a great nation.... At present the Congo Free State’s
government is entirely in the hands of whites, but, in my opinion, any
man who can prove his capacity would receive all that any could
expect.”
For the half-breed of the South another haven must be sought. He is no
more the friend of the black than he is of the white. Neither desires
his company. But in the West Indies, or in some parts of South and
Central America, he might, no doubt, discover a land in which his
existence would be a not unpleasant one.
I have discussed this great subject copiously, but very inadequately. No
question at present before the world has so many aspects; and to America
no question is equally important. The solution which I have advocated is
costly; but it is, I believe, the only one that promises a permanent and
honourable settlement of the difficulty. Any other must be imperfect, or
must involve wholesale bloodshed. Until something of the kind is put
into practice, the dearly bought union must remain a nominal one, and
North and South must continue to cherish different aims, and to be, in
effect, separate nations. Only when the negro shall have departed will
the name of the United States truly represent anything more than a
magnificent aspiration.
It would be ungenerous to conclude this work without some acknowledgment
of the great assistance that has been rendered to me in my study of the
subject by, among others, Mr. Eustace Ballard Smith, Mr. John Bigelow,
Mr. P. Bigelow, Major Post, U.S.A., Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, Mr. J. W.
Barnwell, Mr. G. W. Cable, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, Mr. C. M‘Kinley, Mr.
S. J. E. Rawling, Mr. R. W. Gilder, and the Governors of most of the
Southern States. To them, and to many others, including a number of
negro gentlemen, whose names, if I have not already mentioned them
incidentally, are, at their own wish, withheld, I desire to express my
most grateful thanks, coupled with the sincere hope that the difficulty
which interests all of them, and which is only fortunate in that it has
enabled me to make their acquaintance, may, before long, cease to exist.
APPENDIX.
[Illustration: Black ornamental horizontal divider with a central
diamond-shaped motif.]
A.—THE POPULATION OF THE SOUTH IN 1890.
Up to the time of sending this book to the press, no official statistics
of the relative proportions of the races in the Southern States of the
Black Belt in 1890 have reached me from Washington. Bulletin No. 16 of
the Census Office contains, however, a final statement as to the total
population of each State in question. I give the figures in tabular
form, leaving vacant columns for the insertion hereafter of the missing
information:—
──────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────
│ Total │ White. │ Coloured.
│Population,│ │
│ 1890. │ │
──────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
North Carolina│ 1,617,947│ │
Virginia │ 1,655,980│ │
Georgia │ 1,837,353│ │
Florida │ 391,422│ │
Alabama │ 1,513,017│ │
Louisiana │ 1,118,587│ │
Mississippi │ 1,289,600│ │
South Carolina│ 1,151,149│ │
──────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────
│ 10,575,055│ │
──────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
B.—COLOUR CASTE.
To the _Forum_ for October, 1889 (_Forum_ Publishing Company, 253, Fifth
Avenue, New York), the Rev. John Snyder contributed an article with the
above title. As it illustrates many points that are briefly touched upon
in the present volume, I venture to append some further portions of it
beyond those already quoted.
“A gifted American actor,” says Mr. Snyder, “has conceived a
professional scheme which promises an affluent return of profit and
reputation. He is convinced that, under certain clearly recognised
conditions, the drama of _Othello_ may be made popular in the Southern
States. He sees clearly, of course, why this great product of the
master’s genius has been ‘under a cloud,’ so to speak, south of Mason
and Dixon’s line, and he purposes revealing to the art-loving people of
that section the beauties of a work which the interpretative power of
the greatest actors of the past has never made tolerable on the Southern
stage.
“He is conscious of the natural difficulties to be overcome; of the
state of social feeling which will always resent the intrusion of the
African on the histrionic stage, except within the limited range of the
minstrel show. But his system contemplates an easy solution of these
apparently insuperable difficulties. He does not design to impart a less
pronounced colour to the face of _Othello_, because experience has
taught him that the slightest tinge of creaminess in the complexion and
the faintest crinkle in the hair would leave the prejudice against his
hero’s race practically unaffected. He simply intends to ‘improve’
Shakspeare so that the great bard’s creations may be made generally
acceptable to all sections of our free and enlightened land.
“There is no intention wilfully to misrepresent Shakspeare, or to
distort his plain meanings. But this artist has reasoned himself into
the conviction that the great author’s hero could not have been a negro.
Therefore, all the prejudice against him on that ground is manifestly
unreasonable. In the very nature of things, he must have been the
representative of another race, or else _Brabantio’s_ friendship,
_Desdemona’s_ love, _Cassio’s_ esteem, and the unstinted admiration of
Venice would all be impossible and inconceivable. Accordingly, our actor
holds, _Othello_ must have resembled one of those stately Arab chiefs
whose portraits gleam from the pages of ‘Picturesque Palestine.’
“Our Southern brethren are at last to have an _Othello_ who cannot, as
the moral circus advertisements say, ‘offend the most fastidious.’
Shakspeare, carefully modernised, will become popular once more in the
sunny South. All references to the blackness of _Othello’s_ face and the
thickness of his lips are to be conscientiously softened down into less
objectionable phrases, and those audiences which may be ethnologically
unenlightened are to have their sensitive natures soothed by some such
prologue as _Bottom_ proposed for the sapient actors of Athens: ‘Ladies,
or fair ladies, I would wish you, or I entreat you, not to fear, not to
tremble; my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a “nigger,” it
were a pity of my life. I am no such thing. I am an Arab.’ That would
put all doubt at rest.
“The only thing likely to interfere with the success of this scheme of
mingled philanthropy and profit is the presence of that vast amount of
astute Shakspearean philosophy which is based upon the assumption of
_Othello’s_ objectionable ethnic relationship. What becomes of Professor
D. J. Snider’s ‘System of Shakspeare’s Dramas.’? It is quite probable
that Shakspeare, could he be consulted, would offer no strenuous
objection to the proposed change. Having been an actor himself, he would
doubtless sympathise with the despair to which the modern representative
of his profession is reduced in the task of catering to the present
unreasonable demand for dramatic novelties. As there is not the
slightest appreciable trace of a ‘system’ in any of his dramas, and as
the social prejudice against the African race as such is something which
in his day and generation was still unborn, it is reasonable to suppose
that _Othello_ might be re-made into a Chinaman or a Choctaw without
seriously affecting the motive of the tragedy.
“Still, when a man has constructed a ‘System of Shakspeare,’ and has
announced that ‘Shakspeare makes race an ethical element of marriage, as
important as chastity,’ and that ‘in Europe to-day the marriage of a
lord and a servant-girl collides with the moral consciousness of the
whole public,’ he naturally has the same kind of affection for that
system which Dr. Sangrado had for his, and any attempt to upset its
‘ethical’ conclusions by substituting an Arabian _Othello_ for an
Ethiopian, will be apt to be resented. It is as fundamentally unethical
to marry an Arab as a negro. It will be much wiser for our actor frankly
to retain the African characteristics of his hero, letting it be
understood that a true Shakspearean system employs this tragedy as an
‘awful example’ to warn those who are tempted to leap over the ethical
fence of racial distinctions.
“Once outside of the atmosphere of American social life, it is difficult
to treat the spirit of colour caste with seriousness or decent respect.
Of course, that man would be but a shallow ethnologist who should
maintain that the terms ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ do not justly mark the
distinctions between races, or who should refuse to acknowledge that
certain choice characteristics of civilisation are confined within
fairly well-ascertained racial limitations. And the man who looks with
disapproval upon marriage unions between the members of a progressive
race like the Caucasian, and the members of a conditionally unimprovable
race, is governed by principles of the simplest prudence, to say no
more. The difficulty is always in determining this question of
improvability. The Spanish race in its various colonies has seemed to
stand still for three centuries, yet to attribute racial inferiority to
the countrymen of Cervantes and Loyola would be manifestly unjust. The
negro race in this country may be mentally and morally both inferior and
unimprovable, and hence it would be both wise and ethical for our stock
to refuse to make with it a mixture of blood. But the average American
knows nothing and cares nothing about any physiological reasons for
declining such marriages. In truth, the race question does not, with us,
involve this marriage element at all. Generally speaking, nobody wants
his daughter to marry a negro, and the negro is not anxious to seek such
marriages. As a matter of fact, in the matter of marriage the negro is
ridiculously fastidious, accepting without complaint the white man’s
classification of every shade of colour, even the slightest, under the
head of negro, and rigorously claiming for his own race every possible
modification of the original type. There are plenty of octoroons and
quadroons who might easily pass for members of the white race, but who
never think of seeking marriage associations outside their mother’s
stock. And they would be subjected to the severe censure of the black
race if they did so. The bugbear of ‘miscegenation’ is the least
substantial phantom that haunts the imagination of ignorant people.
“The cruel wall of caste which has been relentlessly built around the
negro in this country was not created by the fear of racial
deterioration on the part of the Caucasian. The feeling from which it
sprang is so inexplicable as almost to defy any philosophical analysis.
That in the Southern States slavery should have created a clearly
defined colour caste was reasonable and natural. That among a people
generous in disposition and generally religious in their habits of mind
this caste feeling should have been strengthened by every argument
tending to show the negro’s natural inferiority and fitness for his
servile position was equally natural. That within the limits of slave
territory every Southern gentleman should consider the presence of
mental ability in an individual negro a reflection upon the system and a
menace to its continuance, was the most reasonable thing in the world.
But it is only justice to say that not in the South but in the North did
this curious feeling of colour caste first have its rise. The Southern
man apparently denied to the negro social recognition not primarily
because he was a negro, but because he was a slave. The Northern man
seems to hate the negro primarily on account of his colour. In domestic
service, the filthiest and most ignorant Irish or German servant refuses
to eat at the same table with the cleanest and most respectable negro.
In some of our hotels the wealthiest negro in the land could not
purchase, at any price, the privilege of sitting in the common
dining-room, or of occupying one of the sleeping apartments.
Industrially, he is practically restricted to a “beggarly account,” of
the least profitable and most menial trades. Those labour unions which
complain so bitterly of the oppression of capital, and announce Utopian
principles of universal brotherhood, do not dare to cast their mantle of
protection over the despised and neglected labourer with a black skin.
But saddest of all is the attitude which the Church has held towards
this spirit of colour caste. Ideally, at least, the Church is the home
of human equality. All classes and conditions of men are supposed to
meet there on a common ground. And while we constantly depart from this
principle in practice, we usually try to cover and disguise our
shortcomings by a thin veil of self-exculpation. We may not want the
poor and poorly dressed man sitting in our pews, but we rarely make a
frank confession of the fact. Only the negro is openly, and by common
consent, excluded from the broad definition of Christian equality. We
have not yet accepted Mr. Nasby’s advice, and altered our version of the
New Testament so that it shall read ‘Suffer the little (white) children
to come unto Me,’ but it would be quite consistent for us to do so.
“This condition of things would cease to be mysterious if it were based
upon recognised physiological reasons. We can easily understand
_Brabantio’s_ surprise when his daughter became enamoured of a
thick-lipped African, or Aunt Ophelia’s disgust at seeing Eva hanging
about the neck of Uncle Tom. We are not disposed to question the good
Puritan’s conviction that the pure negro is ‘an acquired taste.’ But we
entertain the same personal and social repugnance for every possible
modification of the negro. Even when the bleaching process has been so
thorough that no external indication of African blood remains; even when
the individual has assumed all the characteristics of Caucasian beauty
and intelligence, we still treat him as a social pariah. Several years
ago there was, at a certain school in Pittsburg, a very beautiful and
intelligent young lady. In scholarship and deportment she stood for a
year at the head of the school. At the end of that time somebody told
the principal that his favourite pupil had lurking in her veins a few
unsuspected and undiscoverable drops of African blood. She was turned
out of the doors as ignominiously as if she had been guilty of
unchastity or was afflicted with some infectious disease.
“Tell the average American that he is descended from Pocahontas, that
his blood may be traced to Confucius, or that his daughter has secretly
married one of Madame Blavatsky’s mythical Indian Mahatmas, and the
chances are that he will be flattered and gratified. You stumble over no
‘ethical principle’; you encounter no fatal racial prejudice. Tell him
that his great-great-grandfather was probably a powerful potentate from
the Congo or the Niger, and you touch the acme of insult. It would be
safer to accuse him of highway robbery.
“But the most astonishing feature of this colour caste is found in the
complacent assumption of the average American that it is something
inherent and natural in the human mind, and is therefore universal. Tell
such a person that it is the result of social and political education,
and he will smile at your ignorance. Yet when such an American steps
over the borders of his own country he does not find this prejudice
shared by any other nation. The Frenchman, Englishman, or German may not
want his daughter to marry a negro, but in no part of Europe do you
detect the presence of that galling system of social discrimination
which so exasperates the black man in this country. All over the
continent of Europe you find the negro living in the best hotels,
travelling in first class coaches, and sitting as an equal on the
benches of the great scientific and art schools. You find no trace of
this prejudice in the press or literature of Europe; you find no taint
of it in its social life. London is the great meeting-place of all the
varied races of the world. A new Peter would find there the
representatives of more peoples than listened to the many-tongued sermon
on the Day of Pentecost. All colours and conditions of men make up the
varied web and woof of its marvellous life. Each man’s condition is
determined by his rank, his wealth, his social position. Social caste
indeed exists of the most rigid type; but it is never based on colour,
hardly ever upon racial distinctions. It may be, as the author of the
‘System of Shakspeare’s Dramas’ affirms, that the marriage of a lord and
a servant-girl ‘collides with the moral consciousness of the whole
public,’ but a man’s treatment is conditioned upon his wealth, his
intelligence, his knowledge, his rank, or his personal character, never
upon the colour of his skin. In the light of this fact our colour caste
seems as provincial as it is undeniably absurd, cruel, and
indefensible.”
C.—SLAVERY IN THE NORTH.
The following letter was addressed in 1888 to the Editor of, and was
printed in, the Charleston _News and Courier_. As it deals very ably,
though from a pronouncedly Southern standpoint, with the responsibility
of the North towards the negro, I reprint it with a few insignificant
corrections:—
“SIR,—I was glad to see your editorial on March 9th last on the
Emancipation Proclamation. It is surprising how much ignorance exists
upon the subject of emancipation in some of the usually best-informed
circles. I desire to call your attention to two instances of this in
that usually accurate journal, the _Nation_ (of New York). In a recent
number there appeared the review of a letter written from Washington
to a paper in Frankfort:—
“‘The condition of our negro population is the subject of a Washington
letter in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ of December 24th, 1887. The
writer’s view of their social status is correct enough, but he is
rather at sea in his historical retrospect, as when he says that the
South was at one time more opposed to slavery than was the North, and
that the Civil War was a struggle between “the sons of the
slave-owners and the planters to whom their fathers had sold their
dark commodities.” This is a corollary to the misleading statement
that “in 1790 the negroes were distributed throughout this country,
and were almost exclusively slaves,” but that, “during the first
quarter of a century the inhabitants of the Northern States gradually
sold their slaves to the South, where climate and the nature of the
agricultural products increase the value of negro labour,” all of
which sounds as if the countryman of Von Holst had drawn his
inspiration from the pro-slavery pamphlets of Buchanan’s
Administration.’
“I have not seen this letter, nor do I know who is the writer, but if
you will allow me space I think I can convince even the _Nation_, and
its readers who shall happen to see this communication, that the
statements quoted are not so wide of the mark as the _Nation_ seems to
think.
“If such, as the _Nation_ suggests, was indeed the source of the
writer’s information, can the following facts and figures, which are
taken mostly from a work of that time, be disputed? The author from
whom I take the figures, as I cannot at this moment put my hand upon
the census of 1790, was, it is true, a Rebel brigadier, the heroic
defender of Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg, where he was killed;
but, all the same, can the statements be denied?—(‘Cobb on Slavery,’
Philadelphia, T. and I. W. Johnson and Co., 1858):—
“By the census of 1790 there were 40,370 slaves in the States north of
Virginia. Now how were those 40,000 slaves emancipated? Can any one
point to a single Act by any Northern State by which any negro was
actually and immediately emancipated? We ask this because it is clear
that all the gradual emancipation schemes had just the effect which
the Frankfort writer states: to wit, they caused the inhabitants of
the Northern States generally to sell their slaves to the South. Laws
prohibiting slavery after some future date were but warnings to the
owners of slaves to send them out of the State before the Act should
go into effect. The inevitable working of such Acts was to send the
slaves South for sale.
“Vermont, we know, claims the honour of having been the first to
exclude slavery. She claims that this was done by her Bill of Rights
in 1777. But the census of 1790 shows seventeen slaves. Her Bill of
Rights could not have done a very perfect work since it allowed
seventeen slaves to remain in bonds thirteen years after its adoption.
Slavery, which had been introduced into Massachusetts soon after its
first settlement, was ‘tolerated,’ as Chief Justice Parsons gently
expresses it, certainly until the adoption of the Constitution of
1780. Nor, indeed, did the Constitution of 1780, by any express
provision or declaration, prohibit slavery. But a very few days ago a
letter of Mr. Thomas Silloway, of Boston, appeared in the Charleston
_Sun_, giving instances of bills of sale and disposition by will of
Indian and negro slaves in Massachusetts as late as 1771. Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes makes Old Sophy, the nurse of Elsie Venner, the
daughter of a slave mother. So gradual was the decadence of slavery in
Massachusetts that as late as 1833 her Supreme Court could not say by
what specific Act the institution had been abolished. (Winchendon v.
Hatfield, 4 Mass. 123; Commonwealth v. Aves, 18 Pick, 209.)
“In Belknap’s ‘New Hampshire,’ Vol. III., 280, published in 1792, the
matter is thus explained:—
“‘Slavery is not prohibited by any express law. Negroes were never
very numerous in New Hampshire. Some of them purchased their freedom
during the late war by serving three years in the army. Others have
been made free by the justice and humanity of their masters. In
Massachusetts they are all accounted free by the first article in the
Declaration of Rights, “All men are born free and equal.” In the Bill
of Rights of New Hampshire the first article is expressed in these
words: “All men are born equally free and independent;” which, in the
opinion of most persons, will bear the same construction. But others
have deduced from it this inference, that all who are born since the
Constitution was made are free; and that those who were in slavery
before remain there still. For this reason, in the late census, the
blacks in New Hampshire are distinguished into free and slaves. It is
not in my power to apologise for this inconsistency.’
“The author then goes on to explain, as we Southerners afterwards
continued to do, how much better off those who were slaves were than
those who were free in other States. By the census of 1790 there were
158 slaves in New Hampshire, and in 1840 there was still one
remaining.
“In the plantations of Rhode Island slaves were more numerous than in
the other New England States, as, indeed, they necessarily were,
considering that the merchants and sailors of that little State were
the greatest slave traders of this country. But as the negroes could
not thrive in that latitude, her Legislature provided a gradual scheme
of emancipation, which took a lifetime to work out, leaving as late as
1840 five slaves in that State. Connecticut was too much interested to
indulge her philanthropy at the expense of an immediate emancipation.
In 1790 she had 2,750 slaves. So she too adopted a plan of gradual
emancipation, by the slow and prudent workings of which seventeen of
her slaves remained as such in 1840.
“As Mr. Bancroft observes: ‘that New York is not a slave State like
Carolina, is due to her climate and not to the superior humanity of
her founders.’ (Vol. II., 303). When South Carolina prohibited the
importation of slaves from Africa in 1789, New York imported them and
shipped the savages to this State as American slaves. As late as 1858
the London _Times_ charged that New York had become the greatest
slave-trading mart in the world, a charge which Wilson, in the ‘Rise
and Fall of the Slave Power,’ fully corroborates. In 1790 New York had
21,324 slaves. She, too, adopted an Act of gradual emancipation, by
the operation of which in 1840 all but four slaves had been gotten rid
of. New Jersey, though adopting the same scheme, was slower in getting
rid of her slaves, 674 still remaining in 1840.
“Adam Smith observed:—‘The late resolution of the Quakers in
Pennsylvania to set at liberty all their negro slaves may satisfy us
that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable
part of their property such a resolution could never have been taken.’
(‘Wealth of Nations.’) There were 3,737 slaves in Pennsylvania in
1790, and, as Adam Smith predicted, she would not sacrifice so much
property. So she, too, provided for gradual emancipation. The census
of 1840 showed sixty-five negroes still in slavery. In 1823 a negro
woman was put up on the auction block along with some machinery,
smith’s tools, and one cow, and sold for debt by the sheriff of
Fayette County, in the State of Brotherly Love. They were still
discussing this case in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as late as
1837, but it was the inadequacy of the price the poor wretch brought,
and not the iniquity of the transaction, about which they were
contending. (Lynch v. Commonwealth, 6 Watts 495.) It was the frosts
and snows which put an end to slavery at the North, not philanthropy.
“It is familiar history that the slave trade by which slavery was
established in this country was carried on by Old England and New
England, and not by the South. As Mr. Lecky points out, the New
England trade, just prior to the Revolution, consisted in sending her
lumber out and bringing slaves in.
“Some time since in his notes, in this same paper, while reviewing a
work on ‘Brazil and Slavery,’ the editor of the _Nation_ wrote as
follows:—
“‘We can recommend it for its own sake, but we have read it with the
deepest interest for its reflected light on that irrepressible
conflict which ended, some would say, in April, 1865, and others in
March, 1876. First, and above all, it inspires a sense of profound
thankfulness that there never existed in this country a party, or a
policy, or a measure of gradual emancipation. We mean, of course,
against that purely Southern slave power which dictated the
compromises of the Federal Constitution.’
“In this the editor of the _Nation_ could not have meant that there
never existed in this country a policy or a measure of gradual
emancipation, for, as we have seen, just such a policy was adopted
throughout the Northern States. It was by just such measures that the
Northern people rid themselves of the institutions which they had so
large a hand in imposing upon the South. But was this statement
correct even if limited by his last sentence, ‘We mean, of course,
against the Southern slave power,’ &c.?
“Mr. Lincoln declared, in his inaugural address, that the Republican
party had no intention to interfere with the institution of slavery;
and Congress, by a joint resolution, approved July 22nd, 1861,
repeated Mr. Lincoln’s declaration, and announced to the South that
the war was only for the preservation of the Union, and not for the
abolition of slavery; and Congress actually passed in March, 1861, by
a two-thirds vote, a proposed amendment to the Constitution that:—
“‘No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorise
or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any State
with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held
to labour or service by the laws of the said State.’
“Upon the recommendation, however, of Mr. Lincoln, made in a special
message in April, 1862, Congress passed another joint resolution
offering pecuniary aid from the General Government to induce the
States to adopt ‘general abolishment of slavery.’
“Mr. Lincoln expressed the sentiment of the North, which enabled him
to carry on the war successfully, when, on the 22nd August, 1862, he
said:
“‘My paramount object is to save the Union, and not to save or destroy
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would
do it. If I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and
if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would
also do that.’
“The slaves in the States at war with the Federal Government were
freed as a military and not as a political measure. The Federal
Government did not free the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, and
Kentucky. The results of the war rendered slavery impracticable, but
that was all.
“The truth is that the South could at any time during the war have
secured the institution of slavery at the sacrifice of the right of
secession. That sacrifice she would not voluntarily make, and she lost
both her sovereignty and her slaves. She was the unfortunate,
innocent, last holder of a dishonoured bill, and the emitters of it
turned upon her and called to the world to see how they would punish
her for holding it.
“EDWARD MCCRADY, JR.”
To this it may be added that, under the old territorial laws of
Illinois, persons were allowed to bring slaves into the Territory under
the name of indentured servants. As such they might be held in bondage
for a term of ninety-nine years or less. This was in direct violation of
the spirit of the ordinance of 1787, which interdicted slavery or
involuntary servitude in all the territory north of the Ohio River. The
first Illinois State Constitution, adopted in 1818, prohibited the
further introduction of slaves, but did not abolish this species of
slavery by liberating the victims of the old Territorial enactments.
Thus slavery existed in Illinois in defiance of the ordinance of 1787
until the adoption of the Constitution of 1848, which contained the
following provision:—“There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in this State, except as a punishment for crime.” After the
adoption of the Constitution of 1818, the first Legislature re-enacted
the law “respecting free negroes, mulattoes, servants, and slaves” of
Territorial times. No severer law was to be found in any slave State. It
forbade negroes or mulattoes to settle in the State without certificates
of freedom. No person was to employ any negro or mulatto without such
certificate, under a penalty of $1.50 for each day. To harbour any slave
or servant, or hinder the owner in retaking a slave, was made a felony,
punishable by restitution or a fine of two-fold value, and by a whipping
not to exceed thirty stripes. Every black or mulatto without a proper
certificate was subject to arrest as a runaway slave, to be advertised
for six weeks by the sheriff, when, if not reclaimed or his freedom
established, he was sold for one year, after which he was entitled to a
freedom certificate. Any slave or servant found ten miles from home
without permit was liable to arrest and thirty-five stripes, on the
order of a justice. For misbehaving to his master or family he was
punishable with the lash. Indeed, punishment with the lash to the number
of thirty-nine and forty stripes was prescribed for each of a long list
of offences, real or of legal construction. Even after the adoption of
the Constitution of 1848, which required the General Assembly at its
first session to pass such laws as should effectually prohibit free
persons of colour from immigrating to, or settling in this State, and
should prohibit the owners of slaves from bringing them there for the
purpose of setting them free, the Legislature passed an Act, February
12th, 1853, which imposed on every such coloured person a fine of $50.
If the fine was not paid forthwith he was to be advertised and sold to
any one who would pay the fine and costs for the shortest period of such
person’s service. A case under this law was carried up to the Supreme
Court, and decided, so late as 1864, to be valid. Other provisions of
these enactments, which were known as the Black Laws, were almost
equally detestable. On February 7th, 1865, they were repealed. Had it
not been for these Black Laws the census of Illinois would not be
blotted with an enrolment of “168 slaves” in 1810; 917 in 1820; 747 in
1830; and 331 in 1840—the last census that carries such a stain.
Fortunately, the masters and people at large were better than their
laws.
D.—THE GROWTH OF THE COLOURED RACE.
The following table shows the white and coloured populations of the
whole of the United States at the various decennial periods from 1790 to
the present time:—
─────┬──────────┬─────────────────────
Year.│ Total │ Coloured.
│ White. │
„ │ „ │ Free. │ Slaves.
─────┼──────────┼──────────┼──────────
1790 │ 3,172,006│ 59,527│ 697,681
1800 │ 4,306,446│ 108,437│ 893,602
1810 │ 5,862,073│ 186,446│ 1,191,362
1820 │ 7,862,166│ 233,634│ 1,538,022
1830 │10,537,378│ 319,599│ 2,009,043
1840 │14,195,805│ 386,293│ 2,487,355
1850 │19,553,068│ 434,495│ 3,204,313
1860 │26,922,537│ 488,070│ 3,953,760
1870 │33,589,377│ 4,880,009│ none
1880 │43,402,970│ 6,580,793│ none
1890 │ │ │ none
─────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────
INDEX.
Abolition of slavery, 19
Adams, J. A., 52
Advantages of getting rid of the negro, 208, 209
Africa for the negro, 195, 201, etc.
African Colonisation Society, The, 183
African Steamship Co., The, 210
Aims, Necessity for providing the emigrant with, 197, 200, 204
Anderson, J. W., 43
Alabama, Reconstruction in, 32
Amendment XIII., 19, 21, 67
—— XIV., 25, 35, 67
—— XV., 39, 64, 67, 86, 151, 153, 154
American institutions unsuited for the negro, 196, 198
Anglo-Saxon antipathy to miscegenation, 169
“Appeal to Cæsar, An,” 90
“Appeal to Pharaoh, An,” 131, 165, 175, 178, 211
Argentine, Suggested migration to the, 189, 190
Arkansas, Cotton raised in, 194
—— _Democrat_ quoted, 192
Arms, Length of the negro’s, 69
Arrest of Democratic Legislators, 61
Arrest, Illegal, 51
Assisted emigration for the negro, 200
Atlanta _Constitution_ quoted, 73, 192
Augusta _Chronicle_ quoted, 128
Ballot, American system of, 81
——, Unsuitability of the negro for the, 86
Bancroft, Mr., 227
Barbers’ shops, Race prejudice in, 102
Barksdale, E., 23, 53
Barnwell, J. W., 214
Bassett, E. D., 163
_Belford’s Magazine_ quoted, 167
Belgians, H.M. the King of the, 203, 204
Bigelow, J. and P., 214
Birmingham _Age-Herald_ quoted, 190
Black Belt? What is the, 9
—— blood, Prejudice against, 87
—— Parliament, A, 41
Blank resignations, 59
Blyden, Dr. E. W., 189, 193
Board of Registration, The, 57
Boston _Advertiser_ quoted, 97
—— _Herald_ quoted, 72, 112
—— _Transcript_ quoted, The, 164
Brain, Weight of the negro’s, 69
Bruce, B. K., 162
Buckalew, Mr., 28
Buenos Ayres _Prensa_ quoted, 190
—— _Standard_ quoted, 190
Bullock, Governor, 50
Bureau, Freedmen’s, 25, 27
Butler, Senator, 196, 199
Cable, G. W., 91, 93, 102, 214
Call, Senator, 197, 199
Cardozo, Mr., 49
Carpet-baggers, 27, 33, 39, 52, 55, 141
Caste, Colour, 218
Census, Eleventh, 1
——, First, 3, 4
——, Tenth, 1 _et seq._
Chamberlain, Governor D. H., 46
Charleston _Budget_ quoted, 95
—— _News and Courier_ quoted, 80, 96, 102, 104, 105, 106, 120, 192,
194, 224
—— _Sun_ quoted, 226
—— _World_ quoted, 136
Chicago _Herald_ quoted, 101
Childishness of the negro, 199, 200
Church, A. M. E., 86
Cincinnati, Race prejudice at, 98
Civilisation of Africa by the negro, 201, 202, 203, 204
Civil Rights Bill, The, 65, 68
Clay, Henry, 183
Cleveland _Gazette_ quoted, 195
“Cobb on Slavery” quoted, 225
Colour caste, 217
Coloured majority, States having a, 5
—— men, Prominent, 162
—— National League and Voodooism, The, 113
—— people, _see also under_ Mulatto, Octoroon, etc.
Colour line in the North, The, 181, 182
Coloured race, Increase of the, 232
Colour, The significance of racial, 167
Columbia, Abolition of negro suffrage in, 74
Columbia, Negro suffrage in, 28
Columbia, S.C., Extravagance at, 40
Compensation of the negro, 207
Cone on Race Colour, Mr., 167
Confederate States held to be out of the Union, Ex-, 27, 29
Congo, American negroes for the, 203, 204, 211, 212
——, Advantages of the, 211
Congress may limit the suffrage, 86
——, Thirty-ninth, 24, 27
Connecticut, Slavery in, 227
Constitution, _see_ Amendments
Constitutional Conventions, 30
Conventions, Constitutional, 30
Corbin, Judge, 33, 34
Corruption in South Carolina, 44
——, Official, 36
—— of negro-Republican party, 58
Cost of negro emigration, 207
Cotton raised by white and by negro labour, 194
Cotton fields, The negro not necessary in the, 191, 192
“Counting out,” 80
Cranium, The negro, 70
Criminality of the negro, 114
“Cuffy, Old,” 36
Curtis, G. W., 71
“Cyclopædia of Political Science” quoted, 52
Dangers of the situation, 16, 143
Darnell, Prof. S. B., 172
Death-rate of the white and the negro, 3
Debt of the U.S. to the negro, 185, 186, 189, 198, 205
—— of the United States, 206
Democrat, The Southern white is a, 22
Democratic Legislators arrested, 61
Depew, C. M., 214
Diseases of negroes, 108
Disenfranchisement of ex-Confederates, 29, 54
Douglas, Senator, 172
Douglass, Mr. Fredk., 98, 163
Drummond, Prof., 179
Duty of the United States, 210, 213
Edgington, Col. T. B., 153
Edmunds, Senator, 75
Education as a suggested panacea, 157, 161, 164, 165
Education, Negro, 75, 116
Eight-box Law, The, 82, 83
Election at Mount Pleasant, An, 84
Elections, Fraudulent, 33, 50, 78–85
—— of 1886, 27
Elliott, R. B., 163
Emancipation a failure, 125
—— destructive of miscegenation, 177
—— in the North, 225
Emigration as a panacea, 181
——, Cost of negro, 207
—— from the South, White, 10, 11
——, Futile plans of, 184
——, The negro’s willingness for, 187, etc.
—— the only cure, 182, 188, 189
Enfranchisement of the negro, 29
Equality a hopeless dream, 155
Equity of pre-Reconstruction legislation in Virginia, 52
Eustis, Senator, 83
Expulsion by force impracticable, 198
Extermination of the negro, 155
Extravagance, Negro-Republican, 39
—— of the Reconstruction Era, 59
Eyes, Peculiarity of the negro’s, 69
Facial angle, The negro’s, 69
Farmer’s Alliance, The, 84, 145
Fleet, Governor Warmoth’s, 58
Florida, Reconstruction in, 50
Foreign birth in the South, People of, 11, 12
Forgery of an Act of the Florida Legislature, 50
_Forum_ quoted, The, 96, 193, 217
_Frankfurter Zeitung_ quoted, The, 224
Fraud, Apologists for white, 15
—— at elections, 33, 50, 78–85
——, The white rules by, 14, 15
Freedman, The liberties of the, 91
Freedmen’s Bureau, 25, 39
Froude on negro inferiority, 88
—— on race pride, 172
—— on the Haytian negro, 158
—— on the negro in San Domingo, 159, 160
Fulkerson, H. S., 115
Fulton, Dr., 142
Gaillard destroys registration books, 84
Galveston _News_ quoted, 192
Garfield on Reconstruction, 30
Georgia, Cost of General Assembly in, 49
——, Murder in, 96, 99
——, Negro ownership in, 120, 121, 122, etc.
——, Race prejudice in, 94
——, Reconstruction in, 49
Gibbs, Senator, 139
Gibson, Senator, 197, 199
Gilder, R. W., 214
Gilham on negro inferiority, 88, 89
—— on the growth of negro population, 12, 13, 14
Gouldsboro, Riot at, 94
Governors, Power of the Military, 30
Grady, H. W., 165
Grant, President, 26
Greenville _News_ quoted, 105, 192, 208
Growth of negro population, Estimated, 12, 13
Hamilton, Rev. J. W., 172
Hampton, Governor Wade, 46, 49, 197, 198
_Harper’s Weekly_ quoted, 71
Harris, G. E., 56
Hart, Governor, O. B., 51
Haskell, General, 84, 145
Hayti, Condition of, 158, 203
Healthiness of the South, General, 147
Hemphill, J. J., 23
Herbert, H. A., 22, 23
Hoar quoted, Mr., 36
Hoffman House, Race prejudice at the, 98
Holmes, Dr. O. W., 226
Hotels, Race prejudice at, 97, 98, 105
Hubbard, J. B., 43
Hybridism and sterility, 179
Ice-cream shops, Race prejudice in, 100
Idle class of whites peculiar to U.S.A., 148
Ignorance of the negroes, 33, 36, 73
—— of the Southern white, 149
Illegal arrests, 61
Illinois, Slavery in, 230
Illiteracy, Negro, 21
——, Statistics of, 117
Increase among the negroes, Rate of, 2, 233
Indebtedness of America to the negro, 198, 205
Inequality of the races, 20, 199
Infant mortality among the blacks, 8, 108
Ingalls, Senator, 80, 85
Instep, The negro’s, 70
Intimidation at Jackson, 95
——, Republican, 37
Intolerance excused, White, 73
Jefferson, President Thomas, 145, 182, 183, 184
Johnson, President, 25, 28, 29
Johnston, Professor Alexander, 52
Jones, A. O., 48
Judges, Dependency of the, 59
——, Ignorance of, 52
Judge’s charge, A queer, 34
Kellogg, W. P., 60, 61, 62
King, Senator Rufus, 184, 185
Kirk, Colonel, 37
Knott, Dr. J. C., 179
Ku-Klux Klan, The, 77
Lagos, American negroes in, 210
Langston, J. U., 163
“Lark heel,” The negro’s, 70
Laws, Danger of enforcing the, 66
——, Importance of the, 128
Lecky on the New England Slave Trade, 228
Lee, Governor, 208
——, Rev. T. S., 187
Legislature of South Carolina, The, 39, etc.
Liberia, Condition of, 160
——, Establishment of, 183
Limitation of Suffrage, Suggested, 154
Lincoln, President, 229
—— on miscegenation, 172
—— on negro inferiority, 88
—— on slavery, 20
—— on the suffrage, 30
Lopez not more powerful than Warmoth, 60
Lottery, The Louisiana, 62
Louisiana Lottery, The, 62
——, Reconstruction in, 56
——, Riot in, 94
Louisville _Courier Journal_ quoted, 132
Luxury of negro legislators, 39, 54
Lynching, 96, 116, 132, 133, 134, 135, 142
McCrady, Letter from Mr. Edward, 224–231
Machinery inimical to the negro, 194
Macon _Telegraph_ quoted, 99
M‘Kinley, C., 214
Maltreatment of the blacks, 94
Manumission a political measure, 19
——, Lincoln’s views on, 20
——, Seward’s views on, 19
Marriage, Negro avoidance of, 110
Martial Law in the South, 29
Massachusetts, Slavery in, 225, 226
Mean whites, 148
Memphis _Avalanche_ quoted, 191
Mexico, Suggested emigration to, 189
Middle passage, Horrors of the, 186
Military Governors, 23, 24
Military Governors, Power of the, 30
—— Rule in the South, 21
Militia, A coloured, 37, 42, 43, 46, 58
Minority, Rule of the, 8
Miscegenation, 217, etc.
—— as a suggested panacea, 157, 165, 178
——, Causes of, 175
——, Illegal, 106
—— is now rare, 174, 175
——, Lincoln on, 172
—— unnatural, 166
——, one-sided, 177
Mississippi, Cotton raised in, 194
——, Intimidation in, 95
——, Reconstruction in, 52
Missouri, Race prejudice in, 103
Mitchell, J. A. D., 195, 196
Moloney, Sir Alfred, 210
Montgomery _Herald_ quoted, The, 141
Morals of Southern whites, 143, 176
—— of the negroes, 110
Morgan, Senator, 197, 199
Morrill, Senator, 75
Mortality, _see also_ Death-rate
—— among the negroes, 109, 147
——, Infant, 8
Moses, Franklin J., 44, 45, 46, 47, 49
Mount Pleasant, An Election at, 83, 84
Mulatto, The, 174, 178 _et seq._
—— a bad citizen, The, 163, 177, 179, 180
—— children, Rarity of, 174
—— communities, 176
—— decreasing in numbers, 163
——, Intelligence of, 162
——, Short life of the, 179
——, The future of the, 213
—— unhealthiness, 178
Murder as a political factor, 77
—— in Alabama, 104, 136
—— in Georgia, 105, 133, 136
—— in Indiana, 137
—— in Kentucky, 137
—— in Louisiana, 105
—— in North Carolina, 135
—— in South Carolina, 97, 136
—— in Tennessee, 136
—— near Robins, 95
Nashville _American_ quoted, 192
_Nation_ quoted, The New York, 224, 228
Navy, Race prejudice in the American, 98
Negro, _see also_ Coloured Mulatto, Octoroon
——, Advantages of getting rid of the, 208, 209
——, Aims of the, 68
—— as a child, The, 199
—— as a worker, The, 139
—— at the polls, The, 77
—— avoidance of marriage, 110
—— can be dispensed with, 193
—— cannot govern, The, 161
—— childishness, 76, 199
—— colonisation, Causes of failure of, 183
—— —— Society of Augusta, 189
—— criminality, 114
——, Death-rate of the, 3
——, Debt of the United States to the, 185, 186, 189
——, Diseases of the, 108
—— education, 75, 116
—— emigration, Cost of, 207
——, Employments of the, 9, 10
——, Enforced inferiority of the, 71
—— enfranchisement, 29
——, Expectations of the extinction of the, 152
——, Extermination of the, 155
—— Government intolerable, 64
——, His unambitious nature, 11
——, How far the White depends upon the, 146
—— Ignorance, 33
——, Illiteracy of the, 21
——, Increase of the, 2
—— inferiority, Lincoln on, 88
—— ——, Froude on, 88
—— ——, Gilliam on, 88, 89
—— ——, Tourgée on, 89, 90
—— in sickness, Provision for the, 75
—— legislators, Vices of, 36
——, Material position of the, 119, 125
—— mortality, 109
—— must be assisted to emigrate, The, 200
—— must be governed, The, 200, 202
—— newspapers, 98, 120, 138, 141
——, Physical peculiarities of the, 69
——, Repression of the, 8
—— rule, 31, etc.
—— schools, 119
——, Social position of the, 65, 87
—— soldiers during the war, 186
—— suffrage advocated by Sumner, 28
—— suffrage in Columbia, 28
—— —— —— ——, Abolition of, 74
—— ——, Lincoln on, 21
—— ——, Opposition to, 24
—— tendency to relapse to barbarism, 168
——,” “The, 115
——, The South can spare the, 190
——, The White’s attitude towards the, 75, 140
—— threats to the Whites, 138, 142
——, Unhealthy habits of the, 108
——: Why he may not rule, 16
—— Venality, 33
Negrophobia in the North, 73, 74
Negro’s readiness to migrate, 187, etc.
Negroes are but small farmers, 192
——, Infant mortality among, 107
——, Morals of the, 110
——, Prominent, 162
—— unable to govern, 54
—— voting before they have the suffrage, 35
Nelson, Mr. Justice, 29
New England slave trade, The, 228
—— Hampshire, Slavery in, 226
—— Jersey, Slavery in, 227
—— Orleans, Coloured ownership in, 121
—— ——, _Picayune_ quoted, 97, 192
—— —— _Republican_ subsidised, 59
—— ——, Riot at, 61
—— —— _Times-Democrat_ quoted, 121, 191
—— York _Evening Post_ quoted, 99, 102
—— —— _Herald_ quoted, 99
—— ——, Race prejudice in, 97, 102
—— —— Slavery in, 228
—— —— _Star_ quoted, 96
—— —— _Tribune_ quoted, 108, 156
—— —— _World_ quoted, 98
Nicholls, Governor, 62
_North American Review_ quoted, 85, 171
North and South compared, 73
North Carolina, Reconstruction in, 35
North, Slavery in the, 224, etc.
Northern Ascendency, 24
Octoroon, White prejudice against the, 175
Oppression of the Southern Whites, 31
Orangeburg _Plain Speaker_ quoted, 98
_Othello_ in the South, 217
Outrage in Alabama, 134
—— in Georgia, 133, 134
—— in Kentucky, 132
—— in Maryland, 134
—— in South Carolina, 133
—— in Tennessee, 134
Outrages by negroes on women, 116, 132, 133, 134, 142
Packard, Governor, 62
Pardons given before trial, 50
Pasco, S., 23
Penalties for teaching a slave, 116
Pennsylvania, Slavery in, 227
Pension-roll of the United States, 207
Philadelphia _Evening Telegram_ quoted, 95
Pike, J. S., 41, 44
Pinchback, Governor, 60, 163
Pittsburg _Dispatch_ quoted, 95
——, Race prejudice at, 222
Politics, Effect of the situation upon, 144
Politics in the South, 21, 24
Polls, The negro at the, 77
Population of the South, 216
Post, U. S. A., Major, 214
_Presbyterian Quarterly_ quoted, 165
Printing in South Carolina, Cost of public, 48, 49
——, Republican monopoly of, 58
Property, The negro as a holder of, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124
Proportions of white and coloured, 5
Prostrate State, The, 38, 41
Puberty, Change in the negro at, 76
Public Funds, Waste of, 44
—— Offices, Race prejudice in, 102
Qualifications for the suffrage, 6
Race antagonism increases, 90
—— hatred, 26
—— prejudice, 72
—— —— at Cincinnati, 98
—— —— at hotels, 97, 98, 105
—— —— at ice-cream shops, 100
—— —— at Pittsburg, 222
—— —— at railway stations, 102
—— —— at Saratoga, 97
—— —— in barber-shops, 102
—— —— in Missouri, 105
—— —— in New York, 97, 102
—— —— in public offices, 102
—— —— in restaurants, 98
—— —— in schools, 100, 101
—— —— in the American Navy, 98
—— —— in the Church, 96, 103, 156
—— —— on railways, 99, 101, 102, 103
—— —— on the gallows, 96
Race pride, Froude on, 172
—— Problem, Its supposed settlement by the Civil War, 15
—— question, Importance of the, 68
Races, Irregularity of the, 20
Race war, 129, 209
Racial colour, 167
—— inequality, 106
—— separation beneficial, 198
Railways, Race prejudice on, 99, 101, 102, 103
—— stations, Race prejudice at, 102
Raleigh _State Chronicle_ quoted, 165
Ratification of Amendment XV., 151
Rawling, S. J. E., 214
Reconstruction, 22, etc.
—— Acts, 29
—— a political measure, 52, 53
——, Garfield on, 30
—— in Alabama, 32
—— in Florida, 50
—— in Georgia, 49
—— in Louisiana, 56
—— in Mississippi, 52
—— in North Carolina, 35
—— in South Carolina, 38
—— in Virginia, 51
——, Joint Committee on, 26
——, Lincoln on, 30, 31
Reed, Governor Harrison, 50
Registration books destroyed, 84
—— Certificates, Loss of, 80
——, The Board of, 57, 61, 62
Religious race prejudice, 156
Repeal of Amendment XV., Suggested, 153
Representation of States in Congress, 24
Repression of the Negro, 8
Republican majority in the Thirty-Ninth Congress, 28
_Republican_, New Orleans, 59
Republican, The negro is a, 21
Restaurants, Race prejudice at, 98
Returning Board, _see_ Registration, The Board of.
Rhode Island, Slavery in, 227
Richardson, Governor J. P., 82
Richmond _Dispatch_ quoted, 192
Riot at Gouldsboro’, 94
—— at New Orleans, 61
Roosevelt, T., 214
Sage, B. J., 23, 58, 60
St. Louis _Republic_ quoted, 98
San Domingo, Condition of, 159, 160
Saratoga, Race prejudice at, 97
Savannah _Times_ quoted, 103
Schoffner Act, The, 37
Schools for negroes, 119
——, Race prejudice in, 100, 101
Scomp, Professor, 193
Scott, General R. K., 39, 42, 43, 44
Selma _Independent_ quoted, 138
—— _Times_ quoted, 100
Separation of the races beneficial, 198
Seward on Manumission, 20
Shakespeare and race questions, 217, etc.
Shaw University, 204
Sherman, Senator, 75
Shepard, Colonel, 203
Shepley, Governor, 30
Sickness, Provision for the negro in, 75, 109
Silent South,” “The, 91
Silloway, T., 226
Skin, Peculiarities of the negro’s, 70
_Skipjack_, Log of H.M.S., 186
Slave, Illiteracy of the, 21
——, Penalties for teaching a, 116
Slavery, Abolition of, 19
—— in Connecticut, 227
—— —— Illinois, 230
—— —— Massachusetts, 225, 226
—— —— New Hampshire, 226
—— —— —— Jersey, 227
—— ——, Abolition of, New York, 227
—— —— Pennsylvania, 227
—— —— Rhode Island, 227
—— —— Vermont, 225
——, Lincoln on, 20
—— not the origin of the war, 19
—— said to be the only logical position for the negro, 164
Slaves in 1790, 225
Smith, Adam, 227
——, Dr. S. M., 165
——, E. B., 214
Snider, Professor J. D., 218
Snyder, Rev. J., 217
Social position of the negro, 87
—— equality said to be disclaimed by both races, 99
Solid South, The, 23
South Carolina, Cotton raised in, 194
—— ——, Inquiry into Scandals in, 47
—— ——, Murder in, 95, 97
—— ——, Reconstruction in, 38
—— Carolinian Statute of Ignorance, 116
——, Deterioration of the, 139, 191
——, General healthiness of the, 147
——, Military Rule in the, 21
——, Politics of the, 21, 24
——, Population of the, 216
——, The negro not indispensable to the, 190, etc.
——? Why the solid, 23
Southern Question, What is the, 71
Spain, Suggested negotiations with, 197
Speer, W. S., 20
Stanley, H. M., 199, 211, 213
Stanton, Secretary, 28
State House, Siege of the Louisiana, 62
States having a coloured majority, 5
Sterility and hybridism, 179
Stevens, T., 24
Stiles, R., 23, 52
Stokes, Colonel, 192
Suffrage, Negro, 21
—— in Columbia, Negro, 28
——, Lincoln on the, 30
——, Negroes voted before they had the, 35
——, Northern opposition to the, 24
——, Possible limitation of the, 86
——, Qualifications for the, 6
——, Suggested limitation of, 154
——, The negro not enamoured of the, 203
Sumner advocates negro suffrage, 28
Superstition, Negro, 112
Supremacy, White, 77
Supreme court, Decision of the, 65, 66, 68
Surrender, as a suggested panacea, 158
Tanner, Rev. Dr. B. T., 171, 173, 174
Taxation, Excessive, 55
Taylor, C. H. J., 183
Tennessee, Race prejudice in, 96
Texas, Cotton raised in, 194
——, Negro ownership in, 119
Thomas, Judge, 33
Thompson, J. E. W., 163
Tillman, Governor, 84, 145
_Times_ quoted, 199, 227
Tissue-ballots, 78
Tourgée, Judge, 118, 152, 161, 173
Trade jealousy in the North, 182
Troops, United States, 61, 62
Tucker, Rev. Dr. 110
Tupper, Dr. H. M., 204
Turner, Bishop H. M., 188
——, H. G., 23
Union divided, The, 209, 214
——, Ex-confederate States held to be out of the, 27
Vance, Z. B., 23, 36
Vermont, Slavery in, 225
Vetoes, President Johnson’s, 28, 29
Vices of negro legislators, 36
Virginia, Reconstruction in, 51
Voodooism, 112, 114
“Vote early and often,” 80
Voters, Qualifications of, 6
Voters, tampering with, 77 _et seq._
Voting populations, 7
War, The South after the, 22, 26 etc.
Warmoth, H. C., 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63
Warrants of Arrest, Blank, 61
Waste of Public Funds, 44
Wealth of the United States, 206
Whipping of negroes, 104
White intolerance excused, 73
White supremacy, 77, 85
White, The negro’s treatment by the 75
White, Ignorance of the Southern, 149
White people are enough for the South, 191, 192
White women to the negro, Attitude of the Southern, 141, 142, 177
Whites assumed without evidence to be guilty, 39
Whites, Depravity of the, 54
Whites, Increase of the Southern, 2
Whites, Idle class of peculiar to U.S., 148
Whites, Oppression of the Southern, 31
Williams, Col. G. W., 203
Williams, Rev. Isaac, 112
Wilson’s “Rise and Fall of Slave Power,” 227
Women, Their position in the Black Belt, 131 _et seq._, 141, 177
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