The Journal of Negro History Volume I Part 50

E. Harris entered his protest against the adoption of the fourth resolution.

A motion made to adjourn sine die at 2 o'clock P.M., was lost; and a resolution restricting each speaker to five minute speeches was adopted.

William Perkins spoke of the law enforced in Kent, by which the children of free colored persons, whom the officers decided the parents were unable to support, were bound out; and also of the law which prohibited a colored person returning to the State if he should happen to leave it.

They were oppressed and borne down.

James A. Jones, of Kent, thought his native county equal to any other in the State, and that colored persons were not more oppressed there than elsewhere in the State.

Charles O. Fisher moved that a committee of five be appointed to draw up a memorial to the Legislature of Maryland, praying more indulgence to the colored people of the State, in order that they may have time to prepare themselves for a change in their condition, and for removal to some other land.

Daniel Koburn, of Baltimore, in referring to the oppressive laws of the State, said the hog law of Baltimore was better moderated than that in reference to the colored people. The hog law said at certain seasons they should run about and at certain seasons be taken up; but the law referring to colored people allowed them to be taken up at any time.

Chas. Dobson, of Talbot, said that the time had come when free colored men in this country had been taken up and sold for one year, and when that year was out, taken up and sold for another year. Who knew what the next Legislature would do; and if any arrangements could be made to better their condition, he was in favor of them. He was for the appointing the committee on the memorial.

B. Jenifer, of Dorchester, opposed the resolution; he was not in favor of memorializing the Legislature--it had determined to carry out certain things, and it was a progressive work.

Chas. Wyman, of Caroline; Jos. Bantem, of Talbot; John H. Walker, Chas.

O. Fisher and others discussed the resolution which was finally adopted.

The following is the committee appointed: Jno. H. Walker and Jas. A.

Handy, of Baltimore; William Perkins, of Kent; Thomas Fuller, of Dorchester; and Daniel J. Ross, of Hartford county.

A resolution of thanks to the officers of the Convention, the reporters of the morning papers, and authorities for their protection, was adopted. The proceedings were also ordered to be printed in pamphlet form.

The Convention, at 3 o'clock adjourned to meet on the second Monday in November, 1853, at Frederick, Md.

--From the _Baltimore Sun_, July 27, 28, and 29, 1852.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

_The Slaveholding Indians. Volume I: As Slaveholder and Secessionist._ By Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, 1915.

Pp. 394.

This is the first of three volumes on the slaveholding Indians planned by the author. Volume II is to treat of the Indians as partic.i.p.ants in the Civil War and Volume III on the Indian under Reconstruction.

The present volume deals with a phase, as the author says, "of American Civil War history, which has heretofore been almost neglected, or where dealt with, either misunderstood or misinterpreted." It comes as a surprise to most of us that the Indian played a part of sufficient importance within the Union to have the right to have something to say about secession. Yet inconsistently enough he was considered so much a foreigner that both the South and the North, particularly the former, found it expedient to employ diplomacy in approaching him.

The South, we are a.s.sured, found the att.i.tude of the Indians toward secession of the greatest importance. Yet it was not the Indian owner so much as the Indian country that the Confederacy wanted to be sure of possessing, for Indian Territory occupied a position of strategic importance from both the economic and the military point of view. "The possession of it was absolutely necessary for the political and inst.i.tutional consolidation of the South. Texas might well think of going her own way and of forming an independent republic once again, when between her and Arkansas lay the immense reservations of the great tribes. They were slave-holding tribes, too; yet were supposed by the United States government to have no interest whatsoever in a sectional conflict that involved the very existence of the 'peculiar inst.i.tution,'"

The above quotation is practically the intent of the book and the author has succeeded in carrying this out in four divisions ent.i.tled: I, "The General Situation in the Indian Country, 1830-1860." II, "Indian Territory in Its Relations with Texas and Arkansas." III, "The Confederacy in Negotiation with the Indian Tribes." IV, "The Indian Nations in Alliance with the Confederacy."

The book is essentially a work by a scholar for scholars. It is certainly not for the laity. The facts are striking but well substantiated. There can be no doubt but that much time has been spent in its compilation. The style, however, is unusually dry. It has appendices, an invaluable bibliography, a carefully tabulated index, four maps, and three portraits of Indian leaders.

It is interesting to note that the author is of British birth and ancestry and so presumably is free from sectional prejudice. Her book marks a distinct step forward, for those who are interested in Indian affairs.

JESSIE FAUSET.

_The Political History of Slavery in the United States._ By James Z.

George, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Mississippi and later United States Senator from that State. The Neale Publis.h.i.+ng Company, New York, 1915. Pp. xix, 342.

This is a discussion as well as the history of slavery and Reconstruction from the time of the introduction of the slaves in 1619 to the break-up of the carpet-bagger governments. "Considering the jealousies and even animosities that are becoming more and more intensified between the North and South, as well as the disposition that is ever increasing in the stronger section to dominate the weaker," the author believes that "it is becoming necessary to think over calmly and seriously the causes that have produced these evils, and to ascertain, if we can, the remedy, if remedy there be."

The work begins with a sketch of ancient slavery, showing that the introduction of the inst.i.tution into the Southern States was not exceptional. He then gives an account of slavery in the colonies, and the efforts to suppress the slave trade. The connection of slavery with the War of 1812 and with the Hartford Convention is noted. He then takes up the Missouri Compromise with some detail, giving almost verbatim the proceedings of Congress relative thereto. In the same way he treats the "Repudiation of the Missouri Compromise," the Annexation of Texas, the Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas--Nebraska Affair, the Lincoln and Douglas Debates, John Brown's Invasion, Secession, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Throughout this treatise, he carefully notes the "jealousy of sectional interest and power and the determination to maintain this power even at a cost of a dissolution of the Union," In other words, the whole sectional struggle grew out of what he calls the effort to maintain the balance of power between two sections of the Union, with the slavery question contributing thereto. Facts set forth bring out very clearly that the South is not to be censured as being especially hostile to the Negro when on the statute books of the North there are found numerous laws to show that persons of color were not considered desirables in those States.

He raises the question as to whether the South violated the Missouri Compromise and considers it a revolution that public functionaries disregarded the rights of the owners of slave property when the highest tribunal, the Supreme Court, had sanctioned these rights. The act of secession is palliated too on the ground that the South had developed under the influence of that peculiar political philosophy which produced there a race that could never sanction pa.s.sive obedience. In seceding the South was not attempting to overturn the government of the United States. It was not contemplated to interfere with the States adhering to the Union. They sought merely to "withdraw themselves from subjection to a government which they were convinced intended to overthrow their inst.i.tutions."

The Civil War came in spite of the fact that the Convention that framed the Const.i.tution negatived the proposition to confer on the Federal Government the authority to exert the force of the Union against a delinquent State.

It was, therefore, a mere act of coercing a section preparing for self-defense. Reconstruction is treated very much in the same way. The laws under which it was effected were unjust, the men who executed them were harsh, and the weaker section had to pay the price.

The book cannot be cla.s.sed as scientific work. The topics discussed are not proportionately treated, the style is rendered dull by the incorporation of undigested material, and the emphasis is placed on the political and legal phases of history at the expense of the social and economic. In it we find very little that is new. It merely presents the well-known political theory of the Old South. The chief value of the work consists in its being an expression of the opinion of a distinguished man who partic.i.p.ated in many of the events narrated.

J. O. BURKE.

_The Const.i.tutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan._ By Floyd Barzilia Clark, Ph.D., a.s.sistant Professor of Political Science in Pennsylvania State College. Series x.x.xIII, No. 4, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science under the direction of the Department of History, Political Economy, and Political Science. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1915.

This work is a legal treatise consisting of a scholarly discussion of the doctrines advanced by Justice Harlan during his service as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States. The book opens with a brief biography of the jurist, emphasizing the important events of his career to furnish a basis for the study of his theories. The author then takes up such topics as the "Suability of States," the "Impairment of the Obligation Contracts,"

"Due Process of Law," "Interstate and Foreign Commerce," "Equal Protection of the Laws," the "Jurisdiction of Courts," "Miscellaneous Topics," and "Judicial Legislation."

The author finds that in the treatment of these important legal questions Harlan measures up to the standard of an able jurist. Replying to those who have charged him with emphasizing too greatly the letter of the law, the writer says that such a contention is based on ignorance or prejudice. "No one who so interpreted the Eleventh Amendment," says the author, "as to maintain that a suit against the officer of a State in his official capacity was not a suit against a State could have held to the strict letter of the law." The author further contends that this criticism of the jurist arises from the fact that he did not believe in equivocation.

The interpretation of the laws relating to the Negro, the point on which he dissented from the majority of the members of the court, should have been given more prominence in this discussion. The discriminations against the Negroes are treated in connection with the chapters on "Interstate and Foreign Commerce" and "Equal Protection of the Laws." The Fourteenth Amendment is treated along with such miscellaneous topics as "Direct Taxation," "Copyrights," "Insular Cases," "Interstate Comity," and "Labor Legislation." Stating Justice Harlan's theory as to the position the Negro should occupy in this country, however, the author writes very frankly.

Harlan, he thought, believed that they should occupy the position that historically they were intended to occupy by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. He believed that the law should be interpreted as it was meant and not as the court thought expedient and wise. "Though it may be true that his relation to the negro in political matters may have made him more violent in his dissents, any one who will look fairly at the question must conclude that his doctrine was legally correct. And as time pa.s.ses, and as both cla.s.ses become better educated and broader in their views, it may be said that the tendency of the court is likely to be to interpret the laws largely as he thought they should have been interpreted, that is, as historically they were meant."

C. B. WALTER.

_Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political, 1865--1872._ By C. Mildred Thompson, Ph.D. Longmans, Green, and Company, New York, 1915.

Pp. 418.

The appearance of C. M. Thompson's Reconstruction in Georgia arouses further interest in the study of that period which has been attracting the attention of various investigators in the leading universities of the United States. These writers fall into different groups. Coming to the defense of a section shamed with crime, some have endeavored to justify the deeds of those who resorted to all sorts of schemes to rid the country of the "extravagant and corrupt Reconstruction governments." Lately, however, the tendency has been to get away from this position. Yet among these writers we still find varying types, many of whom have for several reasons failed to write real history. Some have not forsaken the controversial group, not a few have tried to explain away the truth, and others going to the past with their minds preoccupied have selected only those facts which support their contentions.

What has this author in question done? In this readable and interesting work the writer has shown considerable improvement upon historical writing in this field. She has endeavored to deal not only with the political but also with the economic and social phases of the history of this period. One gets a glance at the State before the war, the transition from slavery to freedom, the problems of labor and tenancy, the commercial revival, the social readjustment, political reorganization, military rule, State economy, reorganized Reconstruction, agriculture, education, the administration of justice, the Ku Klux disorder, and the restoration of home rule.

This research leads the author to conclude that the seven years of the history of the State from 1865 to 1872 marked only the beginning of the social and economic transformation that has taken place since the war. This upheaval broke up the large plantation system, removed from power the "slave oligarchy," and exalted the yeomanry of moderate means, the uplanders now in control in the South. When the Democratic rule replaced Republicanism "one set of abnormal influences were put at rest," economic and social problems becoming the all-engrossing topics, and politics a diversion rather than a matter of self-preservation. The race problem then aroused began in another age, and not being settled, has been bequeathed to a later generation. Emanc.i.p.ation itself would have aroused racial antagonism but Republican Reconstruction increased it a hundred fold. This was the most enduring contribution of Congressional interference.

Politically Reconstruction in Georgia was a failure. The greatest political achievement of the period was the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the Negro, but this was soon undone, the Southern white man having no freedom of choice--"he had to be a democrat, whether or no." Although establis.h.i.+ng the Negro in freedom the government failed to establish him in political and social equality with the whites. "But still," says the author, "the race problem and the cry of Negro! Negro! the slogan of political demagogues who magnify and distort a very real difficulty in playing upon the pa.s.sions of the less educated whites--rise to curtail freedom of thought and act."