The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 25

NO MENTION

of the reception of the pet.i.tion be made in the journal. I then rose to speak upon the last of these motions, but the president of the convention entertained a motion to adjourn, and the convention did so.

The convention made a const.i.tution which was not, however, submitted to the people for their approval. Under it a governor and legislature were elected.

THE BLACK CODE

was ratified by the legislature, and many preposterous laws relating to the Negroes were pa.s.sed. It was evident that the freedman was to be reduced to a condition worse than slavery--he was to be made a serf, attached to the land, and to be under all the disabilities of slavery without having the protection of the property interest of the owner.

CONGRESS took charge of the reconstruction, and the new government of South Carolina fell to pieces, after a brief and inglorious existence.

Although I was the first "carpet bagger," I did not pursue the occupation. I never held office again in the state, although I continued to live there for sixteen years, and taking part in politics as the editor of the Beaufort _Republican_ and the Columbia _Union-Herald_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This account was taken from James G. Thompson's Papers by his daughter, Caroline B. Stephen, of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Special Correspondence of the _New York Tribune_.

BOOK REVIEWS

_The Negro in Virginia Politics, 1865-1902._ By RICHARD L.

MORTON, Ph.D., Phelps Stokes Fellow in the University of Virginia, 1917-1918. Charlottesville, Virginia, 1919. Pp. 199.

Price, $1.50.

This is the fourth number of a series of studies in the race problem promoted by the Phelps Stokes Fund with a view to interesting a larger number of southern white scholars in this field. The seriousness of the problem during recent years has driven home the thought that without scientific investigation it will be extremely difficult to find a rational basis upon which the two races may cooperate for the greatest good of the greatest number. These monographs are very much like the addresses and studies of the University Commission making an effort to meet this need. Judged from the value of the monographs. .h.i.therto produced, however, one must express the regret that these works do not measure up to the desired standard. The chief difficulty lies in the misconception that the whole matter of readjustment may be effected by using the white man only. He is to do the thinking, outline the method of attack, and direct the movement. The Negro, the other half of the equation, has not been invited to share this work and the writers making these investigations are unfortunately biased rather than scientific.

The purpose of this monograph is to show the bad effects of Negro suffrage which had no place in Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction or in the early Congressional plan, but was forced upon the South by a group of aggressive radicals led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner as a means of their personal aggrandizement and of executing punishment and revenge upon the Southern States. It is not true that these two statesmen desired to force Negro rule upon the South. They tried to give that section a democratic government. At first they advised the Negroes to choose for their leaders the intelligent southern whites and the Negroes entreated their former masters to serve them in this capacity. When the whites refused to cooperate, therefore, Congress could do nothing else but make the Negroes the basis of the reconstructed governments. From this partisan point of view only then the monograph is very much of a success. The writer suffered from a preoccupation of mind and in his researches was governed accordingly.

He knew what he wanted to write and found facts to a.s.sist him toward this end.

The book covers in detail form the beginnings of Negro suffrage in Virginia, the campaign of 1867 in which radicals and Negroes drew the color line, the const.i.tutional convention of 1867-68, the committee of nine, the campaign of 1869, the restoration of Virginia, the elimination of the Carpetbaggers from 1869 to 1879, the Readjuster movement in Virginia from 1879 to 1883, politics and race friction from 1885 to 1900, the const.i.tutional convention of 1901-1902, and the new const.i.tution. He, therefore, discusses certain topics already treated in J.A.C. Chandler's _Representation in Virginia_, and _The History of Suffrage in Virginia_; J.P. McConnell's _Negroes and their Treatment in Virginia from 1865-1867_; H.J. Eckenrode's _The Political History of Virginia during Reconstruction_; and C.C. Pearson's _The Readjuster Movement in Virginia_.

The author makes a survey of the situation prior to the Civil War, explaining why the aristocratic Virginians long since accustomed to rule even by excluding the poor whites from the electorate could not tolerate the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the Negroes. An effort is made also to show that inasmuch as most of the Northern States prior to the Civil War had not accepted Negro suffrage, it was natural for the southern people to be opposed to such a policy. To strengthen this point he refers to such authorities as Oliver P. Morton, Governor Andrew and Abraham Lincoln.

The author considers the Negro a failure in politics and supports his contention by a quotation from George W. Murray, who felt that it was the mistake of the nineteenth century to attempt to make the ex-slave a governor before he had learned to be governed and of Booker T.

Was.h.i.+ngton who said, "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 emphasized almost to the exclusion of every interest."

Since the Negro has been eliminated, the author seems to rejoice that the races in Virginia now work together in harmony and are friends. He believes that this relations.h.i.+p will continue only so long as no exterior factor disturbs the equilibrium and concludes with a quotation from John Sharp Williams who feels that "It will be well that wise men think more, that good men pray more and that all men talk less and curse less." If the author really intends to set forth the views of such radicals as John Sharp Williams as those upon which the races may expect to cooperate in the South, he might have added his recent p.r.o.nunciamento that "when it comes to maintaining the honor of a white woman the South respects no law human or divine."

These observations are sufficient to establish the idea of the book.

The Negro during the Reconstruction period was a failure. The white man who has been restored to absolute power so as to establish social ostracism, segregation and lynching is a success. In other words, the whole study is from the white man's point of view. The Negro has no political rights which the white man should respect and unless things are in conformity with the white man's prejudice they are wrong.

No one would gainsay that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of all ex-slaves was a mistake. Oliver P. Morton, and Governor Andrew, of Ma.s.sachusetts, were to some extent right in their criticism of such a policy. It would have been much better to have followed Abraham Lincoln's plan of enfranchising those Negroes who were owners of property or able to read and write and those white men who had not taken any part in the Rebellion. While it should not have been expected that ex-slaves could administer the affairs of the country it could not, on the other hand, have been imagined that their masters who had begrudgingly abandoned their t.i.tle to men as property would in a few years deal with them as one should with human beings. As a matter of fact the black codes which the Southern States enacted immediately after the war show the inability of the aristocratic southerners to deal humanely with a subject people. If, therefore, Abraham Lincoln's policy, of gradually recruiting voters from such blacks as gave evidence of wealth and education and from such whites as manifested a disposition to do the right thing by the country and by the freedmen had been followed, the mistakes of the Reconstruction would have been avoided.

_The Negro Trail Blazers of California._ By DELILAH L. BEASLEY, Los Angeles, California, 1919. Pp. 317.

This is, according to the author, a compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California and from the diaries, papers and conversations of pioneers in the State of California. It includes also a record of present-day Negroes in that State. The book is ill.u.s.trated with portraits exhibiting the life of the people past and present. The work is divided into three parts, the first being historical, the second biographical, and the third an account of the present-day Negro.

Taking up the historical task, the author accounts for the discovery of California and mentions the important roles played by Estevanecito and the Negro priest accompanying the explorers. She then discusses the rule of Spain in California, the Bear Flag Party, the landing of Commodore John D. Sloate, the admission of California to the Union, the Pony Express, the right of testimony, the homestead law, the elective franchise, slavery in California, and freedom papers.

Although intended as a continuous sketch, however, this portion of the work, like most of it, is a mixture of narratives and doc.u.ments.

In the second part of the book giving biographical sketches there is a chapter on the first Negro settlers on the Pacific coast, a pioneer list and the Forty-Niners of color engaged in mining. Into this are worked all sorts of personal narratives without any organizing or unifying scheme as to place or achievement. Not much attention is paid to proportion. The author seemingly wrote all she had heard or collected in each case regardless of the worth of these personal achievements.

The same style holds in the treatment of the present-day Negro of California. There is something about almost everything. The Negro churches and the Negro in education, law and music have considerable s.p.a.ce. The author next takes up distinguished women of color, doctors, dentists, literary persons, Negroes at the Panama Pacific International Exposition, and Negroes in the army. Then follow the notes on the text which, instead of being given throughout the work as footnotes are placed at the end of the work.

Judged from the point of view of the scientific investigator, the work is neither a popular nor a doc.u.mented account. When one considers the numerous valuable facts in the book, however, he must regret that the author did not write the work under the direction of some one well grounded in English composition. As it is, it is so much of a hodge-podge that one is inclined to weep like the minister who felt that his congregation consisted of too many to be lost but not enough to be saved.

_A History of South Africa._ By DOROTHEA FAIRBRIDGE, Oxford University Press, London, 1918. Pp. 319.

One hears much nowadays about the history of South Africa and the development of that recently enlarged domain under the direction of Great Britain adds further interest to the story. The present volume differs, however, from the type of most recent accounts of South Africa in that it is a small ill.u.s.trated work within the reach of those too busy or not sufficiently well grounded in the social sciences to read an intensively scientific treatise. As such, it has a place in the current historical volumes growing out of the reconstruction of the countries revolutionized by the world war.

The work begins with a picture of the country as nature made it. There is an account of early plant life, prehistoric animals, paleoliths, and prehistoric man. The early inhabitants are then given more detailed treatment. Attention is directed to the Bushman, the Hottentot, and the Bantu as each figured in South Africa. An effort to contrast the country as the natives kept it with the country as the white man developed it, is a large part of this chapter.

Beginning then with Prince Henry of Portugal the author presents an array of "Great Adventurers." Following this sketch comes the account of the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz and next Vasco da Gama's voyage around the Cape to India. The climbing of the Table Mountain by Antonio de Saldanha, the landing of Don Francisco of Almeida, the voyage of Sir Francis Drake, and the adventures of other travellers appear in chronological order.

The rise of settlements in South Africa or on the neighboring islands as half-way stations, show the early importance of the country which, after being conquered, soon experienced considerable expansion. Then followed in the seventeenth century an era of prosperity which paved the way for better beginnings the next century under Governors Hendrik, Swellengrebel and Tulbagh. The troubles of the eighteenth century when the settlements had to reckon with natives and foreigners const.i.tute a critical period of the colony ending with the capture of the Cape by the English in 1795. Then follow the first British occupation, the restoration of the Cape to the Dutch by the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, the second rule of the Dutch and the second coming of the British.

With the nineteenth century the British were to be free to start upon an all but uninterrupted rule of prosperity. The establishment of courts, the rise of missions, the improvement in agriculture, and the extension of the frontier characterized the first efforts of the pioneering British. Their relations with the natives and difficulties with the Boers are treated in the chapters on the Story of Natal, the Vootrekkers, the founding of the Boer Republic and the retrocession of the Transvaal. The chapters covering the subsequent period consist of a discussion of new influences, the Uitlanders, the Jameson Raid, the War of 1899-1902, and the problems of peace and reconstruction.

RECONSTRUCTION IN LOUISIANA. By ELLA LONN, a.s.sistant Professor in Grinnell College. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1919.

Pp. 538. Price $3.00 net.

Miss Lonn's book is an exhibition of the true scholarly spirit. Her a.n.a.lysis of the situation in Louisiana politics during the period of Reconstruction is most ably executed. She has neglected no source which would throw light upon this very anachronistic epoch. Public doc.u.ments of all kinds, and especially those which embody the debates in the Senate and a.s.sembly of Louisiana have been made to yield interesting testimonies of the pa.s.sing shows of the years 1867-1876.

Not content, however, with these testimonies, she has called to her aid many other sources including the newspapers of the day wherein is displayed popular reaction towards the orgies being indulged in the State House. And thus the reader's mind, by means of most carefully chosen quotations from these records, as if by a lightning flash, is frequently illumined; so that the whole comedy unfolds before the eyes in a most interesting fas.h.i.+on.

The book is not only filled with a wealth of detailed information concerning the period, it not only tells the story of political debauchery, ignorance and fraud; but notes also the few shreds of constructive work done by the legislators under the coercion of public opinion. All of these facts are put together in a logical manner and show that the author is not only gifted with keen a.n.a.lytic powers, but is also endowed with a peculiar faculty for organizing and marshalling facts in such a manner as to weave a beautiful mosaic of otherwise widely divergent elements.

Miss Lonn has succeeded in writing a very interesting narrative and her book will hold the attention of a widely differing clientele. The student of American politics will find an illuminative study of this very remarkable period, and therefore much food for thought. But this book offers to the lover of fiction a new field. There is the hero, Warmoth, the villain, whose protraiture has been limned by a masterly hand. Little by little, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes by the words of his own mouth, oftener by the mouths of those whom he attacked, and almost constantly by the unfriendly newspapers, she deftly portrays the elements of his character. Warmoth had almost unlimited power and he used it like Cataline to corrupt the corruptible elements of the State. He was essentially a Nero, callous to the last degree and indifferent to the progressive anemia which was destroying the State's finances. Like Julius Caesar he attained his gubernatorial power by making multiple false promises and kept it by a species of corrupt practices which were incredibly vile. There is the tragic setting, the broken, maimed, devastated State of Louisiana, just out of the War of Rebellion and struggling hard to regain her "former glory." There are the carpetbaggers, irresponsible, predatory and indigent, of whom an army estimated to have been five hundred thousand strong invaded the State attracted as vultures by the rich pickings of political conquest. There are scalawags, remnants of the Confederate army, also indigent, nevertheless troublesome and among whom many brigands, murderers and cut-throats sprang up. There were respectable Republicans and Democrats, whites and blacks who formed the background for the tragedy of Reconstruction in Louisiana. There were also the Manichean G.o.ds of sharply defined good and evil, sanity and insanity, righteousness and corruption, civic pride and utmost indifference; murder, theft, malfeasance, ignorance and cra.s.s stupidity. All these thrown in the pot of political regeneration made a situation that was tragically immoral and horrific.

During Warmoth's administration the legislature was a minstrel show.

It was worse than a minstrel show; it was profoundly corrupt.

Lobbyists openly paid legislators, black and white, for their votes.

And what is more, the money was parceled out to each one on the very floor of the Senate and House. This corruption was so rife that it was sickening; it is even nauseating now to read about it. He was finally impeached by the Senate. When it became certain to him that the Senate would vote for his impeachment he cowardly sought to nullify the vote by resigning and fleeing the State. But he regained his power and influence and held office two years longer. And during this time his power was so absolute that the fear of him is manifest in the Senate and House debates. Speakers in making charges of corruption, and even when speaking against bills aimed at increasing the power of the governor, always added, so great was their fear of him, "no reflection is meant upon the present inc.u.mbent," or words to that effect. This although they knew well that it was his very abuse of power which called forth many of the bills under consideration.

It was scarcely possible, however, that such abuses, such corruption and infamy, such vile and degraded practices as those which characterized Warmoth's administration as Governor of Louisiana could long continue. So in 1871 came the crash. An open rupture in the ranks of the Republican party developed. The gatling gun convention, so-called, because federal troops with two gatling guns, guarded the convention building, was held. Warmoth, scenting a conspiracy, bolted and held an independent convention in Turner Hall. With him as the leading spirit of the gathering was Pinchback, then majority leader in the Senate.

The career of Pinchback sheds additional light upon this period. He held a high place in the political life of that day, rising from majority leader, by successive stages, to the lieutenant-governors.h.i.+p, and to the presidency of the Senate. He also became immensely wealthy on account of his a.s.sociation with Warmoth, who is said to have acquired a fortune of more than a million dollars during three years of his administration. While Pinchback was Park Commissioner he was accused by Antoine of cheating him out of $40,000 at one clip. For a time Pinchback was one of Warmoth's staunchest supporters, and when the party in Louisiana was split by the two factions, the Custom House ring and the Warmoth faction, Pinchback was elected permanent chairman of the Warmoth convention and made the keynote speech for the campaign. Subsequently, Warmoth's utter degeneracy alienated him and so they parted company. Warmoth's star descended, and he went down to ignominious defeat. Upon his name and memory were heaped derogations, curses and anathemas. And unfortunately these will always be a.s.sociated with his memory. On the other hand, Pinchback's star rose to the ascendant and he was elected to the United States Senate.