University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER VI.

It has become apparent that the effort
to put the rank and file of the coloured
people into a position to exercise
the right of franchise has not been the
success that was expected in those portions
of our country where the Negro is
found in large numbers. Either the
Negro was not prepared for any such
wholesale exercise of the ballot as our
recent amendments to the Constitution
contemplated or the American people
were not prepared to assist and encourage
him to use the ballot. In either case
the result has been the same.

On an important occasion in the life
of the Master, when it fell to him to pronounce
judgment on two courses of action,
these memorable words fell from
his lips: "And Mary hath chosen the
better part." This was the supreme
test in the case of an individual. It is
the highest test in the case of a race or

a nation. Let us apply this test to the
American Negro.

In the life of our Republic, when he
has had the opportunity to choose,
has it been the better or worse part?
When in the childhood of this nation
the Negro was asked to submit
to slavery or choose death and extinction,
as did the aborigines, he chose
the better part, that which perpetuated
the race.

When, in 1776, the Negro was asked
to decide between British oppression and
American independence, we find him
choosing the better part; and Crispus
Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed
his blood on State Street, Boston, that
the white American might enjoy liberty
forever, though his race remained in
slavery. When, in 1814, at New Orleans,
the test of patriotism came again,
we find the Negro choosing the better
part, General Andrew Jackson himself
testifying that no heart was more loyal

and no arm was more strong and useful
in defence of righteousness.

When the long and memorable struggle
came between union and separation,
when he knew that victory meant freedom,
and defeat his continued enslavement,
although enlisting by the thousands,
as opportunity presented itself, to
fight in honourable combat for the cause
of the Union and liberty, yet, when the
suggestion and the temptation came to
burn the home and massacre wife and
children during the absence of the master
in battle, and thus insure his liberty,
we find him choosing the better part,
and for four long years protecting and
supporting the helpless, defenceless ones
intrusted to his care.

When, during our war with Spain,
the safety and honour of the Republic
were threatened by a foreign foe, when
the wail and anguish of the oppressed
from a distant isle reached our ears,
we find the Negro forgetting his own

wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs
that discriminate against him in his own
country, and again choosing the better
part. And, if any one would know how
he acquitted himself in the field at Santiago,
let him apply for answer to
Shafter and Roosevelt and Wheeler.
Let them tell how the Negro faced death
and laid down his life in defence of
honour and humanity. When the full
story of the heroic conduct of the Negro
in the Spanish-American War has been
heard from the lips of Northern soldier
and Southern soldier, from ex-abolitionist
and ex-master, then shall the country
decide whether a race that is thus willing
to die for its country should not be
given the highest opportunity to live for
its country.

In the midst of all the complaints of
suffering in the camp and field during
the Spanish-American War, suffering
from fever and hunger, where is the
official or citizen that has heard a word

of complaint from the lips of a black
soldier? The only request that came
from the Negro soldier was that he
might be permitted to replace the
white soldier when heat and malaria
began to decimate the ranks of the
white regiments, and to occupy at the
same time the post of greater danger.

But, when all this is said, it remains
true that the efforts on the
part of his friends and the part of
himself to share actively in the control
of State and local government in
America have not been a success in
all sections. What are the causes of
this partial failure, and what lessons
has it taught that we may use in regard
to the future treatment of the Negro
in America?

In my mind there is no doubt but
that we made a mistake at the beginning
of our freedom of putting the emphasis
on the wrong end. Politics and
the holding of office were too largely

emphasised, almost to the exclusion of
every other interest.

I believe the past and present teach
but one lesson,—to the Negro's friends
and to the Negro himself,—that there
is but one way out, that there is but
one hope of solution; and that is for
the Negro in every part of America
to resolve from henceforth that he will
throw aside every non-essential and
cling only to essential,—that his pillar
of fire by night and pillar of cloud by
day shall be property, economy, education,
and Christian character. To us
just now these are the wheat, all else
the chaff. The individual or race that
owns the property, pays the taxes, possesses
the intelligence and substantial
character, is the one which is going to
exercise the greatest control in government,
whether he lives in the North or
whether he lives in the South.

I have often been asked the cause of
and the cure for the riots that have

taken place recently in North Carolina
and South Carolina.[1] I am not at all
sure that what I shall say will answer
these questions in a satisfactory way,
nor shall I attempt to narrow my expressions
to a mere recital of what has
taken place in these two States. I prefer
to discuss the problem in a broader
manner.

In the first place, in politics I am a
Republican, but have always refrained
from activity in party politics, and expect
to pursue this policy in the future.
So in this connection I shall refrain,
as I always have done, from entering
upon any discussion of mere party politics.
What I shall say of politics will
bear upon the race problem and the
civilisation of the South in the larger
sense. In no case would I permit my
political relations to stand in the way
of my speaking and acting in the manner
that I believe would be for the permanent

interest of my race and the
whole South.

In 1873 the Negro in the South had
reached the point of greatest activity
and influence in public life, so far as
the mere holding of elective office was
concerned. From that date those who
have kept up with the history of the
South have noticed that the Negro has
steadily lost in the number of elective
offices held. In saying this, I do not
mean that the Negro has gone backward
in the real and more fundamental
things of life. On the contrary, he has
gone forward faster than has been true
of any other race in history, under anything
like similar circumstances.

If we can answer the question as to
why the Negro has lost ground in the
matter of holding elective office in the
South, perhaps we shall find that our
reply will prove to be our answer also
as to the cause of the recent riots in
North Carolina and South Carolina,

Before beginning a discussion of the
question I have asked, I wish to say
that this change in the political influence
of the Negro has continued from
year to year, notwithstanding the fact
that for a long time he was protected,
politically, by force of federal arms and
the most rigid federal laws, and still
more effectively, perhaps, by the voice
and influence in the halls of legislation
of such advocates of the rights of
the Negro race as Thaddeus Stevens,
Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Butler,
James M. Ashley, Oliver P. Morton,
Carl Schurz, and Roscoe Conkling, and
on the stump and through the public
press by those great and powerful Negroes,
Frederick Douglass, John M.
Langston, Blanche K. Bruce, John R.
Lynch, P. B. S. Pinchback, Robert
Browne Elliot, T. Thomas Fortune, and
many others; but the Negro has continued
for twenty years to have fewer
representatives in the State and national
legislatures. The reduction has
continued until now it is at the point
where, with few exceptions, he is without
representatives in the law-making
bodies of the State and of the nation.

Now let us find, if we can, a cause
for this. The Negro is fond of saying
that his present condition is due to the
fact that the State and federal courts
have not sustained the laws passed for
the protection of the rights of his people;
but I think we shall have to go
deeper than this, because I believe that
all agree that court decisions, as a rule,
represent the public opinion of the community
or nation creating and sustaining
the court.

At the beginning of his freedom it
was unfortunate that those of the white
race who won the political confidence
of the Negro were not, with few exceptions,
men of such high character as
would lead them to assist him in laying
a firm foundation for his development.

Their main purpose appears to
have been, for selfish ends in too many
instances, merely to control his vote.
The history of the reconstruction era
will show that this was unfortunate for
all the parties in interest.

It would have been better, from any
point of view, if the native Southern
white man had taken the Negro, at the
beginning of his freedom, into his political
confidence, and exercised an influence
and control over him before his
political affections were alienated.

The average Southern white man
has an idea to-day that, if the Negro
were permitted to get any political
power, all the mistakes of the reconstruction
period would be repeated.
He forgets or ignores the fact that
thirty years of acquiring education and
property and character have produced
a higher type of black man than existed
thirty years ago.

But, to be more specific, for all practical

purposes, there are two political
parties in the South,—a black man's
party and a white man's party. In saying
this, I do not mean that all white
men are Democrats; for there are some
white men in the South of the highest
character who are Republicans, and
there are a few Negroes in the South
of the highest character who are Democrats.
It is the general understanding
that all white men are Democrats or
the equivalent, and that all black men
are Republicans. So long as the colour
line is the dividing line in politics, so
long will there be trouble.

The white man feels that he owns
most of the property, furnishes the
Negro most of his employment, thinks
he pays most of the taxes, and has
had years of experience in government.
There is no mistaking the fact that the
feeling which has heretofore governed
the Negro – that, to be manly and stand
by his race, he must oppose the Southern

white man with his vote—has had
much to do with intensifying the opposition
of the Southern white man to
him.

The Southern white man says that it
is unreasonable for the Negro to come
to him, in a large measure, for his
clothes, board, shelter, and education,
and for his politics to go to men a thousand
miles away. He very properly
argues that, when the Negro votes, he
should try to consult the interests of
his employer, just as the Pennsylvania
employee tries to vote for the interests
of his employer. Further, that much
of the education which has been given
the Negro has been defective, in not
preparing him to love labour and to
earn his living at some special industry,
and has, in too many cases, resulted
in tempting him to live by his
wits as a political creature or by trusting
to his "influence" as a political
time-server.

Then, there is no mistaking the fact,
that much opposition to the Negro in
politics is due to the circumstance that
the Southern white man has not become
accustomed to seeing the Negro exercise
political power either as a voter or
as an office-holder. Again, we want to
bear it in mind that the South has not
yet reached the point where there is
that strict regard for the enforcement
of the law against either black or white
men that there is in many of our Northern
and Western States. This laxity
in the enforcement of the laws in general,
and especially of criminal laws, makes
such outbreaks as those in North Carolina
and South Carolina of easy occurrence.

Then there is one other consideration
which must not be overlooked. It is
the common opinion of almost every
black man and almost every white man
that nearly everybody who has had
anything to do with the making of

laws bearing upon the protection of
the Negro's vote has proceeded on the
theory that all the black men for all
time will vote the Republican ticket
and that all the white men in the South
will vote the Democratic ticket. In a
word, all seem to have taken it for
granted that the two races are always
going to oppose each other in their
voting.

In all the foregoing statements I have
not attempted to define my own views
or position, but simply to describe conditions
as I have observed them, that
might throw light upon the cause of
our political troubles. As to my own
position, I do not favour the Negro's
giving up anything which is fundamental
and which has been guaranteed
to him by the Constitution of the United
States. It is not best for him to relinquish
any of his rights; nor would his
doing so be best for the Southern white
man. Every law placed in the Constitution

of the United States was placed
there to encourage and stimulate the
highest citizenship. If the Negro is not
stimulated and encouraged by just State
and national laws to become the highest
type of citizen, the result will be worse
for the Southern white man than for the
Negro. Take the State of South Carolina,
for example, where nearly two-thirds
of the population are Negroes.
Unless these Negroes are encouraged
by just election laws to become taxpayers
and intelligent producers, the
white people of South Carolina will
have an eternal millstone about their
necks.

In an open letter to the State Constitutional
Convention of Louisiana, I
wrote: "I am no politician. On the
other hand, I have always advised my
race to give attention to acquiring property,
intelligence, and character, as the
necessary bases of good citizenship,
rather than to mere political agitation.

But the question upon which I write is
out of the region of ordinary politics.
It affects the civilisation of two races,
not for to-day alone, but for a very long
time to come.

"Since the war, no State has had such
an opportunity to settle, for all time, the
race question, so far as it concerns politics,
as is now given to Louisiana. Will
your convention set an example to the
world in this respect? Will Louisiana
take such high and just grounds in respect
to the Negro that no one can
doubt that the South is as good a friend
to him as he possesses elsewhere? In
all this, gentlemen of the convention,
I am not pleading for the Negro alone,
but for the morals, the higher life, of the
white man as well.

"The Negro agrees with you that it
is necessary to the salvation of the South
that restrictions be put upon the ballot.
I know that you have two serious problems
before you; ignorant and corrupt

government, on the one hand; and, on
the other, a way to restrict the ballot
so that control will be in the hands of
the intelligent, without regard to race.
With the sincerest sympathy with you
in your efforts to find a good way out of
the difficulty, I want to suggest that no
State in the South can make a law that
will provide an opportunity or temptation
for an ignorant white man to vote,
and withhold the opportunity or temptation
from an ignorant coloured man,
without injuring both men. No State
can make a law that can thus be executed
without dwarfing, for all time, the
morals of the white man in the South.
Any law controlling the ballot that is not
absolutely just and fair to both races
will work more permanent injury to the
whites than to the blacks.

"The Negro does not object to an
educational and property test, but let
the law be so clear that no one clothed
with State authority will be tempted to

perjure and degrade himself by putting
one interpretation upon it for the white
man and another for the black man.
Study the history of the South, and
you will find that, where there has been
the most dishonesty in the matter of
voting, there you will find to-day the
lowest moral condition of both races.
First, there was the temptation to act
wrongly with the Negro's ballot. From
this it was an easy step to act dishonestly
with the white man's ballot, to
the carrying of concealed weapons, to
the murder of a Negro, and then to the
murder of a white man, and then to
lynching. I entreat you not to pass a
law that will prove an eternal millstone
about the necks of your children. No
man can have respect for the government
and officers of the law when he
knows, deep down in his heart, that the
exercise of the franchise is tainted with
fraud.

"The road that the South has been

compelled to travel during the last
thirty years has been strewn with thorns
and thistles. It has been as one groping
through the long darkness into the
light. The time is not far distant when
the world will begin to appreciate the
real character of the burden that was
imposed upon the South in giving
the franchise to four millions of ignorant
and impoverished ex-slaves. No
people was ever before given such a
problem to solve. History has blazed
no path through the wilderness that
could be followed. For thirty years we
have wandered in the wilderness. We
are now beginning to get out. But
there is only one road out; and all
makeshifts, expedients, profit and loss
calculations, but lead into swamps,
quicksands, quagmires, and jungles.
There is a highway that will lead both
races out into the pure, beautiful sunshine,
where there will be nothing to
hide and nothing to explain, where both
races can grow strong and true and
useful in every fibre of their being. I
believe that your convention will find
this highway, that it will enact a fundamental
law that will be absolutely just
and fair to white and black alike.

"I beg of you, further, that in the
degree that you close the ballot-box
against the ignorant you will open the
school-house. More than one-half of the
population of your State are Negroes.
No State can long prosper when a large
part of its citizenship is in ignorance
and poverty, and has no interest in the
government. I beg of you that you do
not treat us as an alien people. We are
not aliens. You know us. You know
that we have cleared your forests, tilled
your fields, nursed your children, and
protected your families. There is an
attachment between us that few understand.
While I do not presume to be
able to advise you, yet it is in my heart
to say that, if your convention would do

something that would prevent for all
time strained relations between the two
races, and would permanently settle
the matter of political relations in one
Southern State at least, let the very best
educational opportunities be provided
for both races; and add to this an
election law that shall be incapable of
unjust discrimination, at the same time
providing that, in proportion as the ignorant
secure education, property, and
character, they Will be given the right
of citizenship. Any other course will
take from one-half your citizens interest
in the State, and hope and ambition to
become intelligent producers and taxpayers,
and useful and virtuous citizens.
Any other course will tie the
white citizens of Louisiana to a body of
death.

"The Negroes are not unmindful of
the fact that the poverty of the State
prevents it from doing all that it desires
for public education; yet I believe

that you will agree with me that
ignorance is more costly to the State
than education, that it will cost Louisiana
more not to educate the Negroes
than it will to educate them. In connection
with a generous provision for
public schools, I believe that nothing
will so help my own people in your State
as provision at some institution for the
highest academic and normal training,
in connection with thorough training
in agriculture, mechanics, and domestic
economy. First-class training in agriculture,
horticulture, dairying, stock-raising,
the mechanical arts, and domestic
economy, would make us intelligent producers,
and not only help us to contribute
our honest share as tax-payers, but
would result in retaining much money
in the State that now goes outside for
that which can be as well produced at
home. An institution which will give
this training of the hand, along with
the highest mental culture, would soon
convince our people that their salvation
is largely in the ownership of property
and in industrial and business development,
rather than in mere political
agitation.

"The highest test of the civilisation
of any race is in its willingness to extend
a helping hand to the less fortunate. A
race, like an individual, lifts itself up
by lifting others up. Surely, no people
ever had a greater chance to exhibit the
highest Christian fortitude and magnanimity
than is now presented to the
people of Louisiana. It requires little
wisdom or statesmanship to repress, to
crush out, to retard the hopes and aspirations
of a people; but the highest
and most profound statesmanship is
shown in guiding and stimulating a
people, so that every fibre in the body
and soul shall be made to contribute in
the highest degree to the usefulness
and ability of the State. It is along
this line that I pray God the thoughts

and activities of your convention may
be guided."

As to such outbreaks as have recently
occurred in North Carolina and
South Carolina, the remedy will not be
reached by the Southern white man
merely depriving the Negro of his
rights and privileges. This method
is but superficial, irritating, and must,
in the nature of things, be short-lived.
The statesman, to cure an evil, resorts
to enlightenment, to stimulation; the
politician, to repression. I have just
remarked that I favour the giving up
of nothing that is guaranteed to us
by the Constitution of the United
States, or that is fundamental to our
citizenship. While I hold to these
views as strongly as any one, I differ
with some as to the method of securing
the permanent and peaceful enjoyment
of all the privileges guaranteed
to us by our fundamental law.

In finding a remedy, we must recognise

the world-wide fact that the Negro
must be led to see and feel that he must
make every effort possible, in every way
possible, to secure the friendship, the
confidence, the co-operation of his white
neighbour in the South. To do this, it
is not necessary for the Negro to become
a truckler or a trimmer. The
Southern white man has no respect for
a Negro who does not act from principle.
In some way the Southern white
man must be led to see that it is to his
interest to turn his attention more and
more to the making of laws that will, in
the truest sense, elevate the Negro. At
the present moment, in many cases,
when one attempts to get the Negro to
co-operate with the Southern white man,
he asks the question, "Can the people
who force me to ride in a Jim Crow car,
and pay first-class fare, be my best
friends?" In answering such questions,
the Southern white man, as well
as the Negro, has a duty to perform.
In the exercise of his political rights I
should advise the Negro to be temperate
and modest, and more and more to
do his own thinking.

I believe the permanent cure for our
present evils will come through a property
and educational test for voting that
snail apply honestly and fairly to both
races. This will cut off the large mass
of ignorant voters of both races that is
now proving so demoralising a factor in
the politics of the Southern States.

But, most of all, it will come through
industrial development of the Negro.
Industrial education makes an intelligent
producer of the Negro, who becomes
of immediate value to the community
rather than one who yields to
the temptation to live merely by politics
or other parasitical employments. It
will make him soon become a property-holder;
and, when a citizen becomes
a holder of property, he becomes
a conservative and thoughtful

voter. He will more carefully consider
the measures and individuals to be voted
for. In proportion as he increases his
property interests, he becomes important
as a tax-payer.

There is little trouble between the
Negro and the white man in matters
of education; and, when it comes to
his business development, the black
man has implicit faith in the advice
of the Southern white man. When
he gets into trouble in the courts,
which requires a bond to be given, in
nine cases out of ten, he goes to a
Southern white man for advice and assistance.
Every one who has lived in
the South knows that, in many of the
church troubles among the coloured
people, the ministers and other church
officers apply to the nearest white minister
for assistance and instruction. When
by reason of mutual concession we
reach the point where we shall consult
the Southern white man about our politics

as we now consult him about our
business, legal and religious matters,
there will be a change for the better in
the situation.

The object-lesson of a thousand Negroes
in every county in the South
who own neat and comfortable homes,
possessing skill, industry, and thrift,
with money in the bank, and are large
tax-payers co-operating with the white
men in the South in every manly way
for the development of their own communities
and counties, will go a long
way, in a few years, toward changing the
present status of the Negro as a citizen,
as well as the attitude of the whites
toward the blacks.

As the Negro grows in industrial and
business directions, he will divide in his
politics on economic issues, just as the
white man in other parts of the country
now divides his vote. As the South
grows in business prosperity it will
divide its vote on economic issues,

just as other sections of the country
divide their vote. When we can enact
laws that result in honestly cutting off
the large ignorant and non-tax-paying
vote, and when we can bring both races
to the point where they will co-operate
with each other in politics, as they do
now in matters of business, religion,
and education, the problem will be in
a large measure solved, and political
outbreaks will cease.