SOUTH CAROLINA FOLLOWS MISSISSIPPI crush us as you may. He cannot be kept down forever. It is not in the nature of human affairs." Events in Mississippi in a measure confirmed these words. The Mississippi negroes who got their names on the voting list rose in number from 9,036 in 1892 to 16,965 in 1895. This result of the "plan" displeased some South Carolina statesmen. Said one, in the 1895 Convention: "If the white men of South Carolina undertake to have fair elections they will be left. They will all be ruined. I do not want fair elections and I do not propose to vote for anything which would disfranchise any white man. As to the educational qualification, the black man is learning faster than the white man, and under it the first thing we know we will all be left. I am utterly opposed to giving the Republicans one manager of elections. We've got to throw 'em out. In my county there are five or six negroes to one white. If this law is passed we'll be left, in Berkeley." The shade of negro domination which Mississippi conjured away by her new Constitution, haunted South Carolina the more the more her ordinary white population got control and the "Bourbons" were set aside. were set aside. The progressive Democracy of the State, led by the enterprising Captain Benjamin R. Tillman, who became Governor and then Senator, early determined to pursue, touching the race imbroglio, the Mississippi path. A few Bourbons protested, but in vain. Consistently with his record Wade Hampton wrote in 1895: 'I, for one, am willing to trust the negroes. They ask only the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States and that of our own State. Corruption wins not more than honesty;' I advocate perfect honesty, for defeat on that line is better than victory by fraud." The ex-Governor probably did not herein voice the opinion of a majority even of the aristocracy, who had retained control till the '90's, though all were disgusted with the dangerous paradox of having to support honest government by a makeshift of fraud, perjury and murder. At any rate, he was hopelessly out of accord with the progressive elements of the Democracy. So early as 1882 a registration act was passed, which, amended in 1893 and 1894, compelled registration some four months before ordinary elections and required the registry certificate to be produced at the polls. Other laws made the road to the ballot-box a labyrinth, wherein not only most negroes but also some whites were lost. The multiple ballot-boxes alone were a Chinese puzzle. The registration act, however, was especially attacked as repugnant to the State and to the Federal Constitution. It imposed electoral qualifications not provided for or contemplated in the State Constitution and contrary to its express provisions. It was alleged to antagonize the Federal Constitution (1) in fixing by statute, instead of by State constitutions, the qualifications for electors of Federal representatives, (2) in virtually abridging the rights of United States citizens on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and (3) in establishing a white oligarchy in place of a republican form of government. Judge Goff, of the United States Circuit Court, at Columbus, S. C., on May 8, 1895, declared this registration law unconstitutional and enjoined the State from taking any further action under the same. This seemed effectually to block the way to the Constitutional Convention, which was confidently looked to to place the State on the same electoral platform with Mississippi. But all things come to those who wait. In June the Court of Appeals overruled Judge Goff, and the injunction was dissolved. Very little interest was taken in the election of delegates, some polls not even being opened; from others five-sixths of the voters stayed away. The Conservatives held that the proposition had been voted down in the fall of 1894, but the Tillmanites, being in authority, proclaimed it carried. The Convention, which assembled on September 10th, was in the hands of Tillman's followers, many of them ready to go greater lengths than he. Tillman WHY A NEW CONSTITUTION? said in the Convention, "I am willing to give the good deserving white man and black man who cannot read or write, and who has not $300 worth of property, two years within which to be registered and become a qualified voter. I shall use every effort within my power to banish illiteracy from the land, but let us make this law fixed and beyond the possibility of fraud, so that after January 1, 1898, every honest and intelligent white man and negro can vote, if he can read or write, or has $300 worth of property." It was over Tillman's protest that Republicans were excluded from the registration boards. The Greenville News said the object of the Convention was to "provide a system of elections which would give a white majority of from 20,000 to 40,000 without disfranchising anybody and without requiring officers of election to be experts in perjury, fraud and cheating." The Charleston News and Courier said: "The Constitutional Convention has been called to accomplish in a constitutional way the overthrow of negro suffrage. Nobody tries to conceal it, nobody seeks to excuse it. It is not meant to disfranchise every negro in this State—there are some of them who are qualified by education and property to vote-but it is intended that every colored voter who can be disfranchised without violating the higher law of the United States Constitution shall be deprived of the right to vote. On the other hand, it is meant to disfranchise no white man, except for crime, if any way can be found to avoid it without violating the United States Constitution." The Philadelphia Bulletin, a Republican paper, noting the fact that there was a time when such utterances in Mississippi or South Carolina would have set the Republican party ablaze, proceeded: "The plain truth is that the Republicans generally have come to the conclusion that universal negro suffrage has been a failure and that the desire of the South to free itself from the evils of a great mass of ignorance, stupidity and superstition at the ballot box is largely pardonable." The Convention adjourned on December 4, 1895. By the new Constitution the Mississippi plan was to be followed until January 1, 1898. Any male citizen could be registered who was able to read a section of the Constitution, or to satisfy the election officers that he understood it when read to him. Those thus registered were to remain voters for life. After the date named applicants for registry must be able both to read and to write any section of the Constitution, or to show taxreceipts for poll-tax and for taxes on at least $300 worth of property. The property and the intelligence qualification each met with strenuous opposition, but it was thought that neither alone would serve the purpose. Any person denied. registration might appeal to the courts. CHAPTER VI THE NEO-REPUBLICAN ASCENDANCY A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES IN 1888.-BENJAMIN HARRISON.—NOMI- OF WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION.—MCKINLEY, LODGE AND REED PPROACHING the presidential campaign of 1888 the Democrats found their programme ready-made. Cleveland's administration, silencing his enemies within the party, made him the inevitable nominee, while his bold advocacy of reform in our fiscal policy determined the line on which the campaign must be won or lost. To humor the West and to show that it was a Democratic, not a Mugwump ticket, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, was named for Vice-President. The Republicans' path was less clear. That they must lift the banner of high protection was certain; but who should be the bearer of it was in doubt till after the Convention sat. |