“The
Franchise in the South,” by Alfred Moore Waddell
From
“Race Problems of the South: Report
of the Proceedings of the First Annual Conference Held Under the Auspices of
the Southern Society for the Promotion of the Study of Race Conditions and
Problems in the South, at Montgomery, Alabama, May 8, 9, 10, AD 1900,” pp. 41-43.
Mr.
Lincoln, Morton, Wade, Winter, Davis and their school, were opposed to [Negro
suffrage] and did not wish to make it an element in the “reconstruction”
of the Southern States. Thaddeus Stevens and his allies, who finally prevailed,
openly proclaimed that their chief purpose in demanding Negro suffrage in the
South was to permanently secure the ascendency of their party. But there was
another and meaner motive for it, which candid Northern men now freely admit.
Among other evidences of this fact coming from sources that ought to be
credited, I cite the testimony of a Northern man living in my own State, who
recently, in an article advocating the pending amendment to the Constitution of
North Carolina, limiting the franchise, used the following language in regard
to the investment of the Negro with the right of suffrage:
“This
we may well be sure was done as a punishment upon the South by a victorious,
overbearing North, desirous of humiliating and destroying, in a measure, the self-respect
and liberty of their defeated opponents. Of this I am personally cognizant from
my then position as an editorial correspondent of a Northern political
paper.”
If
this be true, as we know it to be, if this cruel thing, done while the passions
of the war were still prevailing, was done not from any sense of right and justice
to the Negro, or of belief in his capacity for the intelligent exercise of the
suffrage, but as a punishment upon the Southern people for the falsely alleged
crime of treason and rebellion more than thirty years ago, what justification
can possibly be found for a longer continuance of the punishment, in view of
the changes that have since occurred in the history of the country? With a
patience little less than miraculous, and a fortitude unparalleled, and a
fidelity to their obligations unsurpassed, the Southern people have emerged
from the jungle of horrors into which this act drove them with hearts still
united, with spirits still unbent, with the light of triumph in their faces and
the goal of wealth and power in full view.
Whether
their Northern countrymen are willing to leave this blot upon the Constitution
or not is a question for themselves, but it is, and, if it remain there, will
continue to be a vain memorial of their own shame. Unrestricted Negro suffrage in
the South is ended, as it ought to be.
And
now let us give some of the reasons why it ought to be—reasons drawn not from
passion or prejudice—but from facts and bitter experience.
Unrestricted
Negro suffrage in the Southern States, if the right be fully and freely
exercised, means the most ignorant, corrupt, and evil government ever known in a
free country. It means more than this, for there can be no social security
where it prevails. Amongst white men, political party ascendency is never
utilized to affect the social order. Social disorder invariably follows Negro
political ascendency. The Negro has had nearly forty years of freedom and citizenship
and opportunity for education, and yet, with many honorable exceptions, he is
quite as incapable of understanding the meaning of true liberty and of intelligently
exercising political rights as he was when first emancipated. The Southern
people, amidst all the calamities that have befallen them, have expended about
$100,000,000 for the education of the Negroes since the year 1870, and yet with
every succeeding year they have become, as a race, less fitted for the duties of
citizenship, and more and more a menace to civilization and good government.
These are not wild or exaggerated statements, but facts capable of proof.
Taking the allegation in regard to the Negro’s incapacity for an intelligent
exercise of his rights and duties as a citizen, and making due allowance for his
earlier inexperience and liability to be misled, it is still true that his
whole political action, from his enfranchisement to this hour, has been
exclusively racial and antagonistic to the best interests of the community in which
he lives. The ballot in his hands has been rather a badge of servitude than a
credential of citizenship, and the success of the ticket for which he votes is
regarded by him as ample authority for aggressiveness and insolence toward his
political adversaries. I speak that I do know, and testify that I have seen. He
drew the color line himself from the start, and has stupidly stood upon it ever
since. In the language of the Northern writer whom I have already quoted,
freedom to the Negro means “simply that he may go and come as he pleases, and
cast his vote for some question, of the purposes and merits of which he has no
more comprehension than the bob-tailed dog who goes with him to the voting
place.”
If
this were all, though a travesty upon popular government, it might be borne;
but, as has happened in every Southern State where the Negroes equal, or
outnumber, the white men and where they have voted their full strength, a victory
at the polls by their party has invariably been followed by an exhibition of aggressive
race feeling and conduct on their part, which endangers the public peace. Then the
welfare of society demands that some restriction be placed upon their exercise of
the voting power.
That
such results have followed the triumph of the Negroes in elections in my own
State, [North Carolina], is a matter of public history. In no State in the Union
were elections more fairly conducted than there, and in none were the Negroes
more kindly and considerately treated, but that very fact nearly caused our
ruin. The Negroes, voting as they always have done, as a unit, under the guidance
of unprincipled white demagogues, through disaffection and division among the white
people, carried the elections in 1896, and immediately in the eastern part of
the State, where they predominate, the evidences of race antagonism and a
disposition to offensively assert equality began to exhibit themselves. Nothing
of the kind had occurred, except in individual instances, since the days of “reconstruction,”
but it at once became common and grew apace. Demands for office, which their
allies dared not refuse, were made and yielded to, and these demands increased
until in some localities the administration of public affairs was largely
committed to Negro officials, and white office holders who were, in many
instances, more inefficient, ignorant and corrupt than their Negro colleagues.
Crimes of all sorts increased alarmingly, and went unpunished. Negro jurors,
who sat in every case that was tried, refused, in the face of the most
overwhelming and undisputed evidence to convict Negro criminals guilty of outrageous
offences. The city authorities and police of some places, including the city in
which I live, became a laughing stock to law-breakers, and objects of contempt
to all good citizens. Eastern North Carolina became a Negro paradise, and immigration
to it began from all quarters. Idle and drunken Negroes infested the streets of
Wilmington day and night, and grew more and more insolent and aggressive.
Ladies were frequently and grossly insulted and citizens assaulted and robbed in
broad daylight. Burglaries were of almost nightly occurrence, and no arrest
followed. A Negro newspaper was established, and crowned a series of offensive
articles by an attack upon the virtue of white women in general.
Another
election was pending and threats of a demand for a still larger share of offices
were made. That election was one of the quietest ever held in the State, and
the Negroes polled about ninety per cent of their strength, but a large
proportion of their former white allies deserted them because of their conduct and
their party was beaten. Then, and not until then, the white people asserted
their supremacy in an unmistakable way, and they intend to preserve it at all
hazards forever. It was not the work of ignorant enemies of the Negroes, but the
long delayed, and spontaneous action of all the white people, united for the common
purpose of preserving their civilization. Of course there was much
misrepresentation of the facts, and much abuse of the leaders of the movement in
certain quarters, but it is a sufficient answer to say that no man ever saw all
classes of a community, including the clergy, armed and walking guard around
their homes when no danger threatened them. In that community to-day there is,
as there has been since the tenth of November, 1898, such a transformation as
has never occurred in the history of any city in America. Nor is it the peace
that reigned in Warsaw that prevails, but a restoration of the majesty of the law
under which industrial enterprises have developed as never before, and growth in
every direction is manifest, and cheerful confidence has been substituted for paralysis
and depression. This remarkable change for the better is observable everywhere in
North Carolina where there was Negro political domination.
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