Political realism and the middle-class economic outlook of black leadership helped to determine the ordering of priorities. Predictably, then, the suffrage issue, not “forty acres and a mule,” came to dominate the black conventions, newspapers, and oratory. While the demand for land raised the ugly specter of confiscation and the abrogation of the rights of property, the demand for the vote simply reaffirmed traditional American principles of equal opportunity, fair play, and government by the consent of the governed. To make this absolutely clear, black spokesmen invoked on every possible occasion the revolutionary traditions of the American nation and appealed to whites on the basis of their most cherished freedoms. If taxed to support national and state government, blacks demanded the right to participate in choosing the men who imposed and spent the taxes. If subjected to the laws of the land, blacks demanded a voice in selecting those who would make and administer the laws. “I tell you, sah,” a North Carolina freedman explained to a northern visitor, “we ain’t noways safe, ’long as dem people makes de laws we’s got to be governed by. We’s got to hab a voice in de ’pintin’ of de law-makers. Den we knows our frens, and whose hans we’s safe in.” Few white Americans could quarrel with those sentiments without violating their own history and traditions. But if they did, blacks grounded their demand for suffrage on an even more direct appeal to the patriotic instincts of the American people.57
If blacks could be trusted with the musket, they could be trusted with the ballot, and the nation owed at least as much to those who had helped to defend it as to those who had tried to destroy it. Their claims to the suffrage, blacks maintained, had already been validated by the martyrdom of Crispus Attucks in the American Revolution, by the valor of black soldiers at the Battle of New Orleans in 1812 and most recently on the battlefields of the Civil War. This patriotic appeal was made frequently, if only because it seemed calculated to win sympathy in the North, where black leaders were now certain the final decision would be made. At the same time, blacks pressed their case on the basis of whites already permitted to vote. If men who had fought against the government could vote, why not loyal Americans who had remained steadfast in their support of the government? If “the very poorest and meanest of white men” and foreign immigrants barely acculturated to American values and principles (such as the “lowly” Irish) could be trusted to exercise the franchise, why not blacks whose roots were as deep as those of any American, including the President himself?58
By citing the admission of immigrants to political privileges, black leaders sought to make two important points. The case of the Irish suggested to them that wealth and literacy were not considered valid criteria for depriving any person of the suffrage. The fact that distinct ethnic groups like the Jews voted without restriction further suggested that political equality need not lead to social mixing, as some whites feared. “They enjoy all the privileges that any white American enjoys in this country,” a black newspaper said of the Jews, but “there is not as much social commingling between the Jew and the white American as between the white American and the black man.” In the view of the Colored American, a black newspaper in Augusta, Georgia, only three classes of the population could be properly deprived of the right to vote: foreigners, children, and women, whose “sphere is anywhere but in the arena of politics and government.”59 Although some black leaders were less dogmatic on the question of extending the vote to women, the issue was seldom raised lest it confuse and undermine the more urgent cause of black suffrage.
In petitioning the Constitutional Convention for suffrage rights, a black meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, frankly admitted the “deplorable ignorance” of the majority of their people. Nor did they expect “the ignorant” to be admitted to the exercise of privileges “which they might use to the injury of the State.” While conceding this point, however, blacks in Charleston and elsewhere insisted that ignorance was not a deficiency peculiar to Afro-Americans but characterized large numbers of whites—North and South. If “the ignorant” were to be deprived of the vote, then, consistency demanded the disfranchisement of tens of thousands of whites. If, on the other hand, ignorant whites voted without undermining American institutions, ignorant blacks could be trusted as well. Although preferring universal manhood suffrage, black leaders were willing to accept educational and property tests, but only if they were applied honestly and equally to both races.60 That would immediately enfranchise literate and propertied blacks, while encouraging others to emulate them. In the 1890s, black leaders would advance a similar proposal as a way of forestalling total disfranchisement. But whether in the 1860s or in the 1890s, black support for conditional suffrage rested on the false assumption that their white opponents objected only to ignorant and poor blacks voting and on the naïve belief that whites would disfranchise some of their own people. Actually, most black leaders knew better and suggested conditional suffrage only as a way of unveiling white hypocrisy and obtaining full suffrage. “Is a white voter required to know how to read and write?” a black newspaper asked. “To be a moral, a religious or a temperance man? Not in the least.… He enjoys his political rights simply because he is a man and a citizen.” The black man asked for no less than that.61
To admit ignorant blacks to political privileges, white critics charged, would inevitably produce a massive pool of voters that could be easily manipulated by the employers who commanded their labor and by unscrupulous politicians who would play upon their expectations. Somehow, the black man as a voter could never be perceived as acting in his own best interests. Seeking to reject that stigma, black spokesmen, in addition to citing a wartime record of service to the Union, suggested that even under the most oppressive conditions of slavery, the black man had not necessarily been unmindful of what was best for himself and his family.
Now, every candid minded man knows full well that the former slaves have always done just what their masters never wanted them to do. The master never wanted his slave to run away, or to eat his swine and cattle, no matter how injustly or inhumanly he was treated or how near starvation he might be. Yet it was done in both of these instances. In fact, to “fool and worry old massa” had become second nature to the slave.62
To the suggestion that the “superior knowledge and cunning” of the whites would overawe them at the polls, a black meeting in Virginia responded that unlike many enfranchised whites they could be depended upon not to vote for “traitors” or at the dictation of “the mitred priest” or the “rich rumseller.” Nor would they ever abuse suffrage by voting to take their states out of the Union. “Mr. Judge, we always knows who’s our friends and who isn’t,” a black preacher in Georgia assured a skeptical northern dignitary.
We knows the difference between the Union ticket and the Rebel ticket. We may not know all about all the men that’s on it; but we knows the difference between the Union and the Rebel parties. Yes, sir; we knows that much better than you do! Because, sir, some of our people stand behind these men at the table, and hear ’em talk; we see ’em in the house and by the wayside; and we know ’em from skin to core, better than you do or can do, till you live among ’em as long, and see as much of ’em as we have.63
With equal disdain, blacks dismissed the contention that they would necessarily vote for the old ruling class by virtue of the economic power it still wielded. “Have the employers of white voters always controlled their votes?” one black petition queried. “Let the history of elections answer.” If former slaves voted the same way as their former masters, that would only suggest that their former masters had become enlightened enough to accept new ideas and political principles.64
The only legitimate test for suffrage, most blacks agreed, lay not in a person’s literacy or economic well-being but in his loyalty to the government and democratic principles. The Civil War demonstrated to them the absence of any necessary correlation between property holding, literacy, and loyalty to the government; indeed, said one black newspaper, “the errors of ignorance have done
less harm than have the graft and venality of the better informed.” Having taken this position, blacks rejected the popular suggestion that they needed to be prepared for suffrage and should only be gradually introduced to political privileges. That, said the New Orleans Tribune, smacked too much of the calculated deceit whites had employed before the war to rationalize the perpetuation of slavery. “They talked of preparing and educating the blacks, so as to qualify them for liberty; but at the same time they were careful that the slaves should not educate or elevate themselves. If we admit the objection, it will hold good forever.… The actual enjoyment of new rights is the only way to get accustomed to and become fit for their exercise.” Besides, to postpone suffrage until blacks acquired an education penalized them for previous restrictions over which they had no control and deprived the Union of their much-needed support at the polls.65
If whites required more than verbal assurances that blacks could exercise the vote responsibly, black leaders in some regions organized mock elections, scheduled them to coincide with the regular elections, and told their people to register and cast their ballots. As early as May 1865, blacks in Norfolk, Virginia, participated in the election of state legislators. Excluded from the regular political process, they held their own ward meetings, conducted a registration drive, improvised a polling place in the local African Methodist Episcopal Church, and on election day voted their preference among the regular candidates. After tabulating the results, making certain to add to them the votes of the black voters, they appealed to both the state legislature and the United States Congress to recognize the legitimacy of their actions and the validity of their ballots. To no one’s surprise, they had voted almost unanimously for the “men of tried fidelity to the Union, and of liberal sentiments.”66 Similar elections were reported in places like Beaufort, South Carolina (November 8, 1864); Fernandina, Florida (where black votes were counted in a mayoralty election); and New Orleans.67
With the presence of an outspoken black press and an articulate, well-organized leadership drawn from the free colored community, the situation in New Orleans was unusual. Although slaves constituted more than half the black population, the well-entrenched mulatto “aristocracy” quickly assumed a dominant influence after Union occupation in April 1862. The tens of thousands of field hands who poured into the city from the outlying rural districts during and immediately after the war might have found this colored leadership both bewildering and alien. Enjoying privileges not available to the slaves, such as the right to acquire property (including slaves), they tended to be light-colored mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons, proud of their Creole heritage, literate and educated, and occupying skilled and professional positions. Within this exclusive group, moreover, classes existed, based upon gradations of wealth and color, ancestry, cultural pretensions, education, and church affiliation.68
No sooner had Union troops entered New Orleans than the demand for full admission to political privileges surfaced in the colored community. Obviously, the usual objections to extending the vote to poor and ignorant blacks could hardly be sustained against such an educated, propertied, and politically conscious colored population. When these blacks called for an end to taxation without representation, as they immediately did, they were not referring to future expectations of taxable property but to an already prevailing condition. Hard-pressed as to how to respond to the demand for voting privileges, whites ultimately came up with a solution that would neatly resolve the difficulty while at the same time split the mulattoes from the black freedmen and uphold the essential principles of white supremacy. The so-called Quadroon Bill introduced into the state legislature in 1864 defined as a “white person” anyone possessing no more than one fourth of Negro blood and admitted such individuals to the same privileges enjoyed by other whites, including the suffrage.
Not only was the proposition inviting but it promptly brought to a head the charge that the mulatto community acted indifferently toward the mass of black people in Louisiana, most of whom resided outside of New Orleans and were only beginning to emerge from the degradation of slavery. But the response to the Quadroon Bill contradicted that assumption soon enough. Neither the New Orleans Tribune, the principal voice of the colored community, nor the colored leaders would lend any support to the proposal; instead, they denounced it as divisive (creating distinctions of “white, white-washed and black”) and preposterous (“If a quadroon has a right to vote, why not a mulatto? … If we take one-half or one-third of the colored population, to make citizens and voters, why not two-thirds or three-fourths?”). Not content with denouncing the bill, colored leaders thought this an ideal time to call for a coalition of blacks, regardless of color or previous condition, that would demand the immediate admission of all citizens on an equal basis to political and civil rights.
The colored men of this country fully understand their position at the present time; they know that, in the Union there is strength; they are determined to be all emancipated from this absurd prejudice of caste; or perish as one man under its weight. Those that imagine that they are divided are much mistaken.
The Quadroon Bill went down to defeat, in part because many white legislators objected to any “black” people voting. But the debate had gone far to allay the freedmen’s apprehensions about the motives and priorities of the free colored community.69
With their pleas for equal suffrage rejected, blacks in Louisiana coordinated their activities to participate in the November election of 1865. Whether their votes would be recognized or not, the Tribune urged every black man to register to vote and to preserve his certificate “as a testimony that he can in after-time bequeath to his children. It will show that in 1865 he was wide awake to the importance of obtaining his rights.” Even as the Republican Party began to organize in Louisiana that same year, the Tribune, although designated the official party organ, implored the black population not to submerge themselves or their aspirations beneath the dictation of political expediency. “Let us be the allies of the Republicans, not their tools; let us retain our individuality, our banner, and our name.”70
Elsewhere in the South, blacks also mounted campaigns to win the right of suffrage and to erase racial distinctions from the statute books. Whether that agitation took the form of Equal Rights Leagues, petitions, or mock elections, it attested to a growing political consciousness, particularly in the urban centers. But although blacks thereby gained valuable political experience, the impact of their meetings, petitions, and appeals on state and Federal legislative bodies and on white public opinion remained minimal. No matter how eloquently or forcefully they made known their grievances and demands, their political status rested ultimately on the fluctuating moods and machinations of white politicians in Washington and on the rapidly growing confrontation between President Andrew Johnson and the United States Congress. What helped to make possible the extension of the suffrage and civil rights to black Americans was not the activities of black activists (who lacked the necessary power to give force to their appeals), or the northern abolitionists (many of whom rested content with the achievement of emancipation), or even the Radical Republicans (most of whom would have stopped short of enfranchising blacks), but the insistence by the white governments in the South that the essentials of the old order be maintained without a modicum of concession and the equally unyielding determination of the President to validate the work and the spirit of those governments.
In adversity and defeat, blacks found the makings of their eventual triumph. Nor did the irony of the situation escape them.
The unexpected policy of our anomalous President may be just as necessary to the great work of our enfranchisement in this country as were the defeats sustained by McClellan to the employment of colored soldiers and the recognition of our citizenship.… The brakes on the railroad car are often of more service than the locomotive. We often need the cloud more than the sunshine.… Paradoxical as it may seem, President Johnson’s opposition to our political interests w
ill finally result in securing them to us.71
Few political analysts could have been more discerning. Although some blacks claimed to regret the clash between the President and Congress, and even as most of them condemned the actions of the Johnson governments in the South, they were hardly averse to profiting from the blunders of their enemies. When ten of the eleven former Confederate states, at the urging of the President, rejected ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, none expressed greater relief or joy than black leaders and newspapers. “Thank God, the Southern oligarchy are blind,” the New Orleans Tribune observed. “This stubbornness of the conquered to refuse the mild and generous terms offered by the conqueror, can only bring the latter to exact stronger guaranties.” Had the amendment been ratified, the Tribune noted, Congress would have been “morally obliged” to recognize the new southern governments and admit their “unpatriotic and illiberal” representatives. “But, thank God, the governing class of the South has not learned prudence yet.… Their folly will save us and save our liberties for the future. It is better for us that the work of reconstruction be protracted. Let the rebels do our work.”72
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