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BOOK 325.26.0L1D c. 1 
 
 OLBRICH # DEVELOPMENT OF 
 SENTIMENT ON NEGRO SUFFR AGE TO 1 8 
 
 J^ 
 
 V 
 
 3 ^153 OOOlOE^m T 
 
 325-26 
 
 xrttd 
 
e.c 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 NO. 477 
 
 History Series, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 1— 13s 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTLMENT ON NEGRO 
 SUFFRAGE TO 1860 
 
 BY 
 
 EMIL OLBRICH 
 
 A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OP WIS0ON9I 
 1912 
 PRICE . . CENTS. 
 
BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 Entered as second-class matter Jiine 10, 1898, at the i)Ost ofBce at Madison, Wisconsin 
 under the Act of July 16, 1894 
 
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Tt 
 
 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 NO. 477 
 
 History Series, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 1 — 135 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENT ON NEGRO 
 SUFFRAGE TO 1860 
 
 BY 
 
 EMIL OLBRIOH 
 
 A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 1912 
 
9^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Colonial Practice and Rbvoltjtionary Principlks, to 1790 1 
 
 CHAPTFR II. 
 A Pekiod of Reaction, 1700 to 1838 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Suffrage and Anti-Sla vebt, 1838 to 1846 71 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Struggle in the Northwest, 1844 to 1857 79 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Republican Party and Negro Suffrage, 1857 to 1860 107 
 
 Bibliography 128 
 
 V 
 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 This study was made during the academic year, 1905 to 1906, 
 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of 
 Master of Arts at The University of Wisconsin, Mr, Olbrich 
 also treated, in the form of exceptionally complete and fin- 
 ished seminary reports, the whole subject of negro suffrage 
 through the passage of the fifteenth amendment, and had 
 planned to present these results, together with a study of its 
 later phases, in the form of a doctoral dissertation. In the 
 summer of 1906, IMr. Olbrich was drowned while bathing in 
 Lake Mendota. This fragment of his work is obviously not 
 precisely in the form in which Mr. Olbrich would have pre- 
 sented it to the public. In particular, more use would have 
 been made of biographical and newspaper material. 
 
 The handling of the material actually used, however, was so 
 thorough and sane as to make the work of editing it a real 
 pleasure, and this reliability, combined with the substantial 
 originality of the facts and conclusions, were felt to warrant 
 publication. 
 
 The manner of treatment, moreover, exhibits a distinct in- 
 dividuality and force, in which are traceable the qualities which 
 gave Mr. Olbrich a marked reputation as a debater, and which 
 is particularly well suited to the subject matter. It is possible, 
 lioweA'er, that these considerations might not of themselves 
 have induced the editor to take up the problem of publication, 
 had it not been for his feeling of friendship for Mr. Olbrich, 
 and his sense of the loss which the historical profession suf~ 
 f ered by his death. 
 
 Carl Russell Fish. 
 
 [5] 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENT ON NEGRO 
 SUFFRAGE TO 1800 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 COLONIAL PKACTICE AND REVOLUTIONARY 
 
 PRINCIPLES, TO 1790 
 
 The imposition of negro suffrage, on the Southern States by 
 the Reconstruction measures of 1867 is regarded liy eminent 
 historians as a hasty act/ Without discussing here whether 
 this view is justified, it may be asserted that to explain fully 
 why the North forced the South to let the black man vote, one 
 must trace the development of ideas on the African's right to 
 choose his rulers through more than a hundred years of previous 
 history. 
 
 Prerevolutionary Restrictions 
 
 Apparently the earliest record of negro voting comes from 
 South Carolina. In 1701 and 1703 the elections for governor 
 were characterized by irregularities ; it was complained in both 
 those years that many illegal votes were received from "sev- 
 eral unqualified classes such as aliens, strangers, servants and 
 free negroes."- On December 15, 1716, an act was passed 
 which provided that "every white man and no other," pos- 
 sessing the requisite qualifications "should be capable to elect 
 
 1 Rhodes. "If ever in our history there was a case of hasty man, it was in 
 the Rtvonstrnction legislation of Congress. The serious discussion began Jan. 
 3. 1S67. and the act was passed over the President's veto March 2." Mass. Hist. 
 Soc. Proceedmfis. 2nd Series. Vol. XVII, p. 460. Dec. 1004. 
 
 = A. E. McKinley, The Kiijfro'jc Frnnc/iise in the Thirteen English Colonies 
 in America, pp. lo7, 1H8. 
 
 [7] 
 
8 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 or be elected meitibers of the Commons House of Assembly."* 
 Virginia, in 1705, forbade any negro, mulatto or Indian to 
 "bear any office," "or be in any place of public trust or power," 
 under penalty of £500, and £20 a month as long as he should 
 continue to hold the position.* That this drastic provision 
 was directed at any real danger seems wholly improbable ; for 
 it was not until 1723 that the same classes were forbidden to 
 vote, by a law which was perhaps the result of an attempted 
 negro insurrection.^ When this latter law was referred to Rich- 
 ard West, Attorney of the Board of Trade, he wrote : "I can- 
 not see why one freeman should be used worse than another, 
 merely on account of his complexion — . It cannot be right to 
 strip all persons of a black complexion from those rights which 
 are so justly valuable to any freeman."® After being in force 
 for ten years or more, this act seems to have been repealed by 
 l')roclamation, for it is found in the revisal of 1733, but not in 
 that of 1766; and another act disfranchising negroes, mulat- 
 toes and Indians, v/as passed in 1762.' North Carolina, in 1715, 
 by "the earliest extant election law," provided that "No 
 Negro, Mulatto or Indians shall be capable for voting for Mem- 
 bers of Assembly."'^ This exclusion Avas omitted from a law 
 of 1784-5 which restricted the suffrage to freeholders, and the 
 preamble of which recites that "it hath been found inconven- 
 ient for the freemen" to vote, and that the royal instruction had 
 directed that only freeholders should vote for members of 
 assembly. Whether the omission of the color discrimination 
 Avas consciously designed to admit negroes, one cannot tell ; but 
 it was not re-adopted by North Carolina until 1835.® Georgia, 
 in 1761, passed an election law, of which the preamble stated 
 that the manner and form of choosing members of the assembly 
 
 "Ibid., p. 146. 
 
 < Ibid., p. 4G. Ilenins. ^Uiiiiles at Lnrf/c. TIT. p. 2.'51. 
 
 !> Honing, IV, pp. l^S-i?A; McKinley. p. nO ; Chandler, J. A. C, The Hinfory 
 "/ ^iiffi'dfje in Virrjinia, Johns Hnpkinx Ilifiioiical Studies, XTX, Nos. 6 & 7, 
 p. ]2. 
 
 *McKinIoy, p. :-;" vefors to Neill. Virf/inia Carolnriim, "?,0 note I; Weeks, S. B., 
 The IJislory of ycfiro Suffraf/e in the Soxtli, Pol. Sci. Quar. IX, p. G73, refers 
 to Summer's Works X, p. lOo. 
 
 •> Weeks, Jbnl. 
 
 ''.McKinley. p. ',)]-2. 
 
 ojbid.. pp. 100, 101. 
 
 [8] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 9 
 
 liad never yet been determined, and which provided that 
 "every free white man and no other," who had the proper 
 qualifications, should be entitled to vote/*^ 
 
 No express exclusion of Africans from the suffrage existed in 
 the laws of any other colony before the Revolution. It is not 
 improbable tliat here and there people willingly acquiesced in 
 the casting of an occasional ballot by a black man or mulatto. 
 Yet the presence of slavery in every colony, and the general 
 and deep-seated prejudice against negroes which then existed, 
 make it seem impossible that courts and law making authori- 
 ties consciously assumed or permitted negro suffrage.^^ ; prob- 
 ably few of the small number of free negroes acquired the 
 requisite qualifications to vote even if admitted on a par with 
 the whites, and certainly the omission of race discriminations 
 was not the result of popular agitation in favor of colored in- 
 habitants. 
 
 First State Constitutions 
 
 No such generalization can be made concerning the omission 
 of color distinctions from the suffrage clauses of the first state 
 constitutions. The Virginia Constitution of 1776 provided: 
 "The right of suffrage in the election of members for both 
 Houses shall remain as exercised at present." The law of 
 1762, therefore, remained in force until the Constitutional con- 
 vention of 1830 adopted the words: "Every white male citi- 
 zen."^- In South Carolina, the election laws of 1721, 1745, and 
 1759 had continued the restriction of the right to vote to white 
 men,^" and the constitution of 1776 provided: "The qualifica- 
 tions of electors shall be the same as required by law."^* The 
 constitution of Georgia, adopted in 1777, confined the suffrage 
 
 ^"Ibid., p. 172; Weeks, p. 074; also Bishop, Historn of Elections in Am. 
 Colonies. 279-287. 
 
 " Prof. Hart says : "In the colonies freed Negroes, like freed indentured 
 white servants, acquired property, founde'd families and came into political com- 
 munity, if they had thp energy, thrift and fortune to get together the necessary 
 property." Ret?rence lost. He gives no evidence, however ; and even after the 
 Revolution, as will be spon later, the negro's right to vote equally with white 
 men was far from established. 
 
 "Poore. Charters and Conslitutions, II, pp. 1910 and 1917. 
 
 "McKinley. pp. 15.S, 154-5,'5, 157; Weeks, p. 673. 
 
 "Poore, II, p. 1618. 
 
 [9] 
 
10 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 to "male white inhabitants."^'' The Delaware legislature, in 
 1787, passed "an act to prevent the exportation of slaves and 
 for other purposes," of which the eighth section provided that 
 manumitted slaves should not vote, hold office, or give evidence 
 against whites,^" and the constitution of 1792 employed the 
 language, "Every white free man," to describe the voter. No 
 other state constitution excluded negroes from the electorate 
 during this period. As constitutions were framed by all the 
 remaining states except Connecticut and Rhode Island, it 
 would seem that, with the example of certain constitutions that 
 forbade negro voting before them, they did not leave out the 
 color discrimination through inadvertence or oversight. It is 
 inferable from the Delaware law of 1787 which excluded 
 manumitted slaves, that, if a negro were bom free and were 
 otherwise qualified, the legislators intended to let him vote. A 
 similar inference is to be drawn from a Maryland law of June, 
 1783, entitled "an act to prohibit the bringing slaves into the 
 State, "^^ which provided that slaves might be manumitted 
 under certain conditions, and "that no colored person freed 
 thereafter, nor the issue of such should be allowed to vote, or 
 to hold office, or to give evidence against any white, or to en- 
 joy any other right of a freeman than the possession of prop- 
 erty and redress at law or equity for injury to person or prop- 
 erty."i« 
 
 An interesting and curious evidence of the African's appre- 
 
 '-' lUd., I. p. :;79. 
 
 1" Hurd, J. C, The Larc oj Frceaom and Boiidape in the United States, Vol. 
 II. p. 74. 
 
 " Laios of Maryland, 1682-1799, vol. II. 1785-1799, Ch. 67 Sec. 5, passed 
 Dee. 'i\, 1796. The book is not paged, but the laws are arranged in chron- 
 ological order. See also in volume' I., ch. 23. passed June 1, 178.", whore the 
 title of the act only, is given. 
 
 "Brackett, J. K.. The Ner/ro in Maryland, p. 186; also Weeks, p. 677. 
 Neither gives authority for the statement. Weeks probably quote'd from 
 Braekett. as ho does on other points. The law of Dec. .".1, 1796. referred to 
 in the preceding note, provides that no manumitted slave, "shall be entitled 
 to the privilege of voting at elections, or of being elected or appointed to any 
 office of profit or trust, or to give evidence against any white person, or shall 
 be recorded as compe't<nt evidence to manumit any slave petitioning for free- 
 dom." No mention is made of the insue of manumitted slaves, and the pro- 
 visions differ in other respects from those nuoted by Braekett. If Braekett had 
 mcre'ly given the wrong date for the law of 1796. ho would not have departed 
 so widely from its provisions. I, therefore, infer that ho had access to another, 
 and as the detailed nature of his citation would indicate, authoritative source. 
 
 [10] 
 
OLBRICII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 11 
 
 elation of the elective franchise, even in slavery, which must 
 have made some of the whites consider the question of negro 
 suffrage, is found in a peculiar slave custom in colonial Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut. In both colonies the imitative negroes 
 followed the example of the whites on election day and elected 
 a governor. In Rhode Island, where slaves were still numerous, 
 each town held its own election to which the slaves looked for- 
 ward with great anxiety and which is said to have been marked 
 by as violent and acrimonious party spirit as among the whites. 
 It was a day of festivity for the blacks ; the owners, in accord- 
 ance with their wealth, were expected to furnish their slaves 
 with money and fine apparel and the negroes assumed power 
 and pride and rank according to their master's station in life. 
 As the number of slaves diminished, these mock elections be- 
 came less general and, toward the end of the 18th century, 
 finally disappeared.^'' In Connecticut, the earliest evidence of 
 the custom is the record that, in 1766, after having held the 
 office ten years. Governor Cuff resigned in favor of John 
 Anderson. There negro elections continued into the nineteenth 
 century after the negroes were freed, and their last governor 
 held office down to within a few years of the civil war. The 
 notices of these elections in early days were addressed to 
 "negro men," but later to "colored gentlemen." On the day 
 of the inauguration of governor of the state, they followed the 
 whites to the capital, enjoyed the military parades and the 
 procession to hear the election sermon, elected a governor, 
 chosen for physical prowess, and a lieutenant-governor, in- 
 augurated them with great ceremony and with shouting, laugh- 
 ing and singing, listened to an address from their governor, ate 
 a dinner, and then danced until noon of the next day.'"''' 
 
 Massachusetts, 1780 
 
 The best proof that the omission of a color discrimination 
 with regard to the right to vote was not accidental is found in 
 
 " Johnson, W. D., Slavertj in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Hist. Soc. Pith., 
 new s'-rips, vol. 2, 1894, p. 139-140. He quotes Updike, "History of the Narra- 
 fjanseit Church" p. 77. 
 
 2» Connecticut as a Colony and as a State, Forest Morgan, Ed. -in-Chief, 
 volume II, p. 259. 
 
 [11] 
 
12 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 the case of Massachusetts. James Otis in his speech on the 
 Writs of Assistance in 1761, liad made John Adams shudder at 
 the consequences of his strong assertion of negro rights.^^ 
 Anti-slavery sentiment, however, was growing, and its progress 
 was accelerated by the doctrines of Revolutionary times, but 
 the champions of the negro were not strong enough to secure 
 for him the elective franchise. The question of negro suffrage 
 came out in the legislature-convention of 1777-1778, and, after 
 a long debate, the opponents of negro equality were victorious, 
 and retained in the suffrage clause the words: "Excepting 
 Negroes, Indians and IMulattoes."-- Great interest attaches to 
 the discussion as the first recorded argument by Americans on 
 the subject of negro suffrage. The friends and opponents of 
 negro equality ridiculed each other's ideas in doggerel verse. ^^ 
 Dr. Gordon asks if it is not ridiculous, inconsistent, and unjust 
 to exclude freemen from voting because of their color.-* "Why 
 not disqualified for being long-nosed, short-faced, or higher or 
 lower than five feet nine? A black, tawny, or reddish skin is 
 not so unfavorable an hue to the genuine son of liberty, as a 
 tory complection."-'^ He added that "the disqualification of 
 mulattoes conflicted with the proposal in the Confederation, 
 that the free inhabitants of each state shall, upon removing 
 into any other State, enjoy all the privileges and immunities 
 belonging to the free citizens of such State." Mr. John Bacon, 
 a member of the convention, published the substance of his 
 speech for negro rights, in which he answered the arguments of 
 those who opposed negro equality."" The suffrage discrimina- 
 tion, he declared, sapped "the foundation of that liberty which 
 we are now defending," it violated the fundamental principle 
 of no taxation without representation; and "the persons ex- 
 cepted in the clause now before the Convention, would be justi- 
 fied in making the same opposition against us which we are 
 
 =» Moore, G. H.. Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts, p. 110. 
 
 ^IMil., pp. 187-191. 
 
 =^ In the Independent Vhroniele and Universal Advertiser of January 29,. 
 February 12th and 19th 1778, referred to by Moore, p. 186. 
 
 ^Jan. 8, 1778, Moore, p. 180. 
 
 " If the word "rebel" were put in place of "tory," the last sentence could 
 bA paralleled by many score from the discussions of the Reconstruction period. 
 
 2«Sept. 2;{, 1779, Moore, pp. 187-191. 
 
 [12] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 13 
 
 making against Great Britain." To the reasoning that the pro- 
 tection which the laws gave negroes was equivalent to the taxes 
 they paid, he answered that Great Britain supported her claim 
 to tax America on precisely the same ground, and that negroes 
 had been given no voice in deciding whether the value of the 
 privileges secured to them by the laws was equivalent to the 
 taxes which were collected from them. ''We set a price upon 
 our own commodity, and oblige them to give it whether they 
 will or not." On the other side, it had been said that Great 
 Britain had desired to tax America without taxing herself, 
 while Massachusetts was taxing negroes and white people 
 equally; but what warrant, lie asked, did the negroes have, 
 when taxed "'as persons who do not belong to our community," 
 that they would not be made to bear exorbitant taxation. He 
 denied that negroes were foreigners ; most of them, he de- 
 clared, were born in this country; the present constitution 
 guaranteed them equal rights and privileges which could not 
 be wrested fi'om them except by mere power. 
 
 Perhaps the most significant argument that he mentioned as 
 having been advanced by his opponents was: "That by erasing 
 this clause out of the constitution, we shall greatly offend and 
 alarm the Southern States. ' ' This he denied : ' ' Will they be 
 offended or alarmed that we do not violate those essential 
 rights of human nature which they have taken the most effec- 
 tual pains to establish and secure." The same argument is re- 
 ferred to by Dr. Gordon in a letter of April 2nd, 1778,-'^ in 
 which he said: "It hath been argued, that were negroes admit- 
 ted to vote, the Southern States would be otlfended . . . . This 
 would be to suppose the Southern States as weak as the argu- 
 ment." In this letter he replied to another almost equally im- 
 portant watchword of the opponents of negro riglits, that 
 negro suffrage would induce negro immigration: "Will not the 
 Negroes be as likely to crowd into the State, if they may be 
 free, though they are debarred the right of voting?" If any 
 are afraid that the Bay inhabitants will, ... at some distant 
 period, become Negroes, Indians or IMulattoes, let the General 
 Court guard against it by future Acts of the State." This ar- 
 
 ==' Published in The Continental Jounufl. .Vpiil Oth, 1778, Moore, p. 192. 
 
 [13] 
 
14 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 gument Avas made and answered again and again m the North- 
 ern States whenever negro suffrage was discussed during the 
 next centuiy. He said the word "mulatto" should have been 
 defined; there was danger that whites with the slightest taint 
 of negro or Indian blood would be excluded. "The complex- 
 ion of the 5th Article," declared Dr. Gordon, "is blacker than 
 any African; aod if not altered, will be an everlasting reproach 
 upon the present inhabitants; and evidence to the world that 
 they mean their own rights only, and not those of mankind in 
 their cry for liberty, ' '-** 
 
 When the Constitution was submitted to the people, there 
 was great difference of opinion among them. Boston and Cam- 
 bridge voted it down unanimously, but not appearantly because 
 of the suffrage clause. Dartmouth favored the equal recogni- 
 tion of the negroes, but at the same time recorded that there 
 was "no Negro, Indian or Mulatto" among her voters.-** The 
 constitution was rejected, but the exclusion of negroes from the 
 right to vote had little to do with this result and the attitude 
 of the convention which inserted the discrimination probably 
 represented the attitude of the people at large. It is true that 
 perhaps from a sense of shame no color distinction was put into 
 the constitution of 1780. Yet the friends of the negro failed 
 even to secure a constitutional provision abolishing slavery,^*' 
 and it was only through a series of court decisions during the 
 following decade, in which the courts gave the broadest inter- 
 pretation to the clause of the Bill of Rights which asserted: 
 "All men are born free and equal," that the Massachusetts ne- 
 groes were all set free.^^ It is probable that in most localities 
 popular sentiment kept negroes from voting, even when they 
 had the requisite property qualification."- In the town of Dart- 
 mouth, which, in 1778, when it had no colored voters, declared 
 in favor of equal recognition of negroes with respect to the 
 elective franchise, the colored inhabitants resisted the payment 
 
 "'Moore, pp. 193, 11)4. 
 ^ Moore, pp. 195, 196. 
 
 2" Locke. M. S., Anti Ulavery in America, (1619-1808), Radcliffe College Mon- 
 Offraphn, No. II. p. 80. 
 
 •'" Ibid., p. 80 ; Moore, pp. 200 et seq. 
 »' Moore,, p. 196. 
 
 [14] 
 
OLBRICII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 15 
 
 of taxes and, in April 1781, they applied to the selectmen to lay- 
 before the voters of the town the question "whether all free 
 negroes and mulattoes shall have the same privileges in this 
 said town of Dartmouth as the white people have, respecting 
 places of profit, choosing of officers, and the like, together with 
 all other privileges in all cases that shall or may happen to be 
 brought in this our said town of Dartmouth.""'^ It is probable 
 that, as in other states, negroes gradually and through custom 
 acquired the privilege of voting here and there in Massachu- 
 setts but not in all places. By 1795, some of them actually did 
 vote, and one mulatto had served as town clerk in a country 
 town. But opinion was divided as to whether men of color 
 were legally entitled to the privileges of an elector."* Evi- 
 dence of the prejudice that must have kept some blacks from 
 voting is found in a law of 1788, which warned all 
 Africans or negroes, unless they were subjects of the Emperor 
 of Morocco or could show that they were citizens of one of the 
 United States by a certificate from the Secretary of the state 
 of which they were citizens, to depart from the Commonwealth 
 within two months. If they refused, they were to be subjected 
 to imprisonment and whipping and the punishment was to be 
 indefinitely repeated until they learned obedience.^'' The only 
 recorded enforcement of this law occurred in 1800. The police 
 collected a long list of the names of persons coming within the 
 scope of the law and published the names in the Massachusetts 
 Mercury for September 16, and warned the negroes mentioned 
 to leave the state by October 10. One-fourth of the prescribed 
 negroes were members of an African Benevolent Society whose 
 avowed purpose was to behave themselves ''as true and faith- 
 ful citizens of the Commonwealth." Obviously the police ex- 
 ceeded the authority given them by the law ; but it is possible 
 that this drastic action was stimulated by a temporary fear of 
 a negro uprising."" 
 
 ^^ Moore, p. 198, quotes Nell's Colored Patriots of the Revolution, 87-00. 
 Moore says he finds no evidence of Nell's statement that these proceedings 
 established the negro's right to vote. 
 
 »* Moore, 199, refers to Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. Vol. I, sor. IV, p. 208. 
 
 35 Moore, p. 228. 
 
 '"^ Moore, pp. 2:U-230. 
 
 [15] 
 
16 bulletin op the university of wisconsin 
 
 New York, 1785 
 
 In New York as in Massachusetts, most of the people opposed 
 negro suffrage and a minority favored it. On the 21st of I\Iarch, 
 1785, the New York Council of Revision vetoed a bill entitled: 
 "An act for the gradual abolition of slavery within this State." 
 The members of the council present were Governor Clinton, Jus- 
 tice Hobart and Chancellor Livingston. The latter wrote out 
 their objections. 1. Because the last clause of the bill enacts 
 that no negro, mulatto or mustee shall have a legal vote in any 
 
 case whatsoever ''The bill having in other instances 
 
 placed the children that shall he horn of slaves in the rank of 
 citizens, agreea])le both to the spirit and the letter of the Con- 
 stitution, they are as such entitled to all the privileges of citi- 
 i^ens, nor can they be deprived of these essential rights without 
 shocking those principles of equal liberty which every page in 
 that Constitution labors to enforce. 2. Because it holds up a 
 doctrine which is repugnant to the principles on which the 
 United States justify their separation from Great Britain, and 
 either enacts what is wrong or supposes that those may right- 
 fully be cliarged with the burdens of government who have no 
 representative share in imposing them. 3. Because this class 
 of disfranchised and discontented citizens, who at some future 
 period may be both numerous and wealthy, may under the di- 
 rection of ambitious and factious leaders, become dangerous to 
 the State and effect the ruin of a Constitution whose benefit 
 they are not permitted to enjoy." 4. Because it "lays the 
 foundation of an aristocracy of the most dangerous and malig- 
 nant kind;" the term "mustee" is indefinite; let but a,few col- 
 ored people intermarry with the w^hites, and in two hundred 
 years hardly a fiftieth of the people will be without some share 
 oi negro blood and all the rest wdll be excluded from the elec- 
 tive franchise. 5. "Because the last clause of the bill being 
 general, deprives those black, mulatto, and mustee citizens 
 irlio liave therefore heen entitled to vote, of this essential priv- 
 ilege ; and under tlie idea of political expediency, without their 
 having been charged with any offence, disfranchises them in 
 direct violation of the established rules of justice, against the 
 letter and spirit of the Constitution, and tends to support a 
 
 [16] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 17 
 
 doctrine, which is inconsistent Avith the most obvious principles 
 of government, that the Legislature may arbitrarily dispose of 
 the dearest rights of their constituents." 
 
 In spite of this vigorous protest, the Senate passed the bill 
 over the veto, but the required two-thirds majority could not 
 be secured in the House. The minority in favor of negro suf- 
 frage was, therefore, by no means inconsiderable. It is a not- 
 able fact that, suffrage excepted, the bill "placed the children 
 that shall be born of slaves in the rank of citizens;" and the 
 fifth objection indicates that probably a few free negroes or 
 mulattoes were in the habit of voting without molestation. 
 One must conclude that, at this early date, the sentiment in fa- 
 vor of the negro was fully as strong in New York as in Massa- 
 chusetts.-"' 
 
 Pennsylvania, 1790 
 
 Tn the Pennsylvania constitutional convention of 1789-1790, a 
 debate arose on using the word "Avhite" to describe the elec- 
 tors. The use of this word was strongly opposed by Alliert Gal- 
 latin and it was left out.'^^ Whether Gallatin made his motion 
 
 •''■street. .\. B. : The Council of Reviftion of the State of New York, its 
 Histori) ; a Histori/ of tho Courts Kith trhich its members irere connected ; 
 Biographical Sketches of its Members; and its Vetoes, pp. 268-260. Referred 
 to by Jeffrey R. Braekett in "The Status of the Slave;" in .T. F. Jameson, Essoijk 
 in the Constitutional History of the United States, p. 298. This in turn is 
 referred to by M. S. Locke: Anti Slaveru in the U. S., p. 12S. Mr. Olbrich's 
 conclusion that the sustaining of the veto was due entirelj' to the desire for 
 netrro suflrage. does not necessarily follow. 
 
 •* I believe the evidence fuU.v warrants these statements. In the convention 
 of lS.S7-.38 ; one of the members, Mr. M'Cahen, said he had been informed that 
 a committee of the Convention of 1780-00 had presrtited a suffrage article con- 
 t.iinins the word "white" ; that Albert Gallatin thought "white" was too in- 
 definite because it might exclude men, who. like himself, were of dark com- 
 plexion, and that on his suggestion it was stricken out. Pa. Convention debates. 
 18ns, III.. 87. The same account is given by f'hief-.Tustice Gibson in his opinion 
 in the case of Hobbs rs. Fnc/q. I>rought in 18:'.7 and decided in 18."8. Watts' 
 Reports. VI., .5r>0. Another member of the convention of 18S7-.38. Mr. f^'pe. 
 said that he had attended some of the meetings of the convention of 1780-00: 
 "On one of those occasions I found the floor occupied by a member, whose 
 appearance and peculiar French accent were well calculated to rivet my atten- 
 tion — his visage was sharp, his e^'e keen, his manner animated, his complexion 
 sallow. .\s he spoke, his body inclined forward — his right arm was extended, 
 and his forefinger Iwnt as if to grajiple with his subject. He was declaiming 
 against the introduction of the word 'white' as a qualification for a voter — 
 flnd said among other things, that if the' word were so introduced, he did not 
 Inow but he himself might be excluded fi'om voting. The whole circumstance 
 made a deep impression on mv mind. I inquired the nrme of the member and 
 
 [17] 
 
18 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 and his speech in behalf of Caucasians of dark complexion or 
 on behalf of Africans, the omission of the color distinction did 
 not give negroes an undoubted and established right to vote. 
 It was the recollection of a member of the Convention of 1837- 
 38, Mr. Hopkinson, that soon after the adoption of the consti- 
 tution of 1790, the question of the negro's right to the elective 
 
 received for answer, that he was Albert Gallatin, delegate from the county 
 west of the Alleghany Mountains." Pa Con. Debales, 1838, IX., 97-98. Another 
 member, Mr. Darlington, produced a letter in which Gallatin confirmed the 
 prevailing impression. The letter, which is not printed in He"nry Adam's 
 edition of the Works of Gallatin, nor listed by him among the unpublished letters 
 of Gallatin, is as follows ; 
 
 New York, December 21, 1837. 
 
 Sir : — Yours of the 19th instant, has been received. Y'ou apply to me for 
 information respecting the share I took forty-seven years ago in framing that 
 article of the constitution of Pennsylvania, which regulates the right of 
 suffrage. 
 
 "I have already beeii addressf^d on that subject in a general way, but not 
 particularly in reference to the point to which you allude. I cannot, in my 
 seventy-seventh year, sufliciently rely on an impaired memory, to assert posi- 
 tive'ly what took place in the course of a discussion embracing a great variety 
 of amendments approved, rejected, repeatedly modified or withdrawn. Yet I 
 have a lively recollection that, in some stage of the discussion, the proposHion 
 pefnding before the convention, limited the right of suffrage to 'free white citi 
 zens' &c and that the word 'white' was stricken out on my motion. 
 
 Permit me, however, to observe that the minutes of the convention, both 
 proper and in the committee of the whole, were published at the time, and are 
 incontrovertible evidence of all the facts on which evidence may be wanted. 
 It seems almost impossible that some copies should not have been preserved 
 among the legislative records, or in some public or private library. 
 
 I am respectfully. 
 
 Your obediciit servant 
 ALBERT GALLATIN. 
 Mr. .Tosi'pl) Parish, Philadelphia. 
 
 Pa. Convention drbatcs, 1837-38, 
 X. 45. 
 The journals of the convention of 1789-90 contain no reference whatever to 
 any such proceedings as Mr. Gallatin me-ntions in his letter ; but Mr. Darlington 
 pointed out that for about a week in December, 1790, the minutes of the com- 
 mittee of the whole merely record for each day that the committee reported 
 further progress and asked leave to sit again. Ibitl., 44. A few moments ex- 
 amination of the journal will convince anyone that Mr. Darlington was right 
 and Mr. Gallatin mistaken in accepting the journal as conclusive evidence. See 
 "Conventions and Constitutions of Pennsiilnania, Harrisbnrg, 182.5." 163-166. 
 Henry Adams found among (iallatin's paper.*: relating to the convention of 
 1789-90 ; "A mtmorandum of his motion in regard to the right of suflfrag->. by 
 virtue of which, every freeman who has attained the age of twenty-one years 
 and been a resident and inhabitant during one year next before the days of 
 election ; every naturalized freeholder, every naturalized citizen who has been 
 assessed for state or county taxes for two years before election day, or who 
 had resided ten years successively in the state, should be entitled to the sufiPrage, 
 paupers and vagabonds only being excluded." Adams, H. The Life of Albert 
 GaltatiH, p. 81. 
 
 [18] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 19 
 
 franchise was raised at a heated election in Philadelphia, that 
 the judges of the election took the opinion of three lawyers, 
 two of whom had been members of the convention of 1789-90, 
 and that all three concurred in affirming that negroes were en- 
 titled to vote."^ In deciding a case which was brought in 1837, 
 Chief Justice Gibson cited as an authoritative precedent an un- 
 reported decision of about the year 1795, in which, according 
 to the remembrance of James Gibson, Esquire, of the Phila- 
 delphia bar who had declined an invitation to be concerned in 
 the argument, the High Court of Errors and Appeals had de- 
 cided that negroes did not have the right of suffrage.*" The 
 question seems to have been little thought of for more than 
 forty years and was still undecided in 1838. 
 
 The Articles of Confederation 
 
 The central government also was obliged to deal with the 
 negro question. Wlien the Continental Congress was discuss- 
 ing tlie Articles of Confederation, New Jersey objected to the 
 proposed ninth article, which provided that the requisitions for 
 the laud forces should be apportioned among the several states 
 according to the number of their ivhite inhabitants. The 
 grounds of objection were stated in "The Representation of the 
 Legislative Council of the State of New Jersey,"*^ which Con- 
 gress took into consideration on June 5, 1778. Since "all men 
 are created equal," it follows that "all the inhabitants of every 
 society, be the color of their complexion what it may, are bound 
 to promote the interests thereof according to their respective 
 abilities." In the slave states, the performance of nearly all 
 manual labor by the negroes leaves more whites at liberty to do 
 military service than in the free states. Therefore requisi- 
 tions of land forces should be in proportion to all the inhabi- 
 tants. The motion to strike out ivhite was, however, lost.^- A 
 more interesting controversy arose on the same day over the 
 fourth article which provided that "the free inhabitants of 
 each of these States shall be entitled to all privileges 
 
 "^ Pa. Con. debates, 1S;^7-3S, X.. p. 97. 
 
 **nohhs V. Fogg, p. 6, Watts, p. 553. 
 
 *^ Secret Journals vf Congresn, Domestic Affairs, I., pp. 374, 37J 
 
 «/6i<Z., p. 381. 
 
 [19] 
 
20 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 and immunities of free citizens in the several states/' South 
 Carolina moved to insert "white" between the words "free in- 
 habitants," and also to insert after "several states" the words 
 "according to the law of such states respectively for the gov- 
 ernment of their own free white inhabitants." Both these 
 amendments were defeated; eight states voted against them, 
 one state was divided and two states voted for them.*^ Con- 
 gress therefore was not willing to refuse negroes the "privi- 
 leges and immunities of free citizens." That the right to vote 
 was included among them was, as we have seen, the opinion of 
 Dr. Gordon of Massachusetts: but the question was not then a 
 settled one. The Confederation Congress, however, had to pass 
 on the qualifications of electors in organizing the Northwest 
 Territory; and in the Ordinance of 1787, no color discrimina- 
 tion was inserted.^'* 
 
 Influence of Declaration of Independen'ce 
 
 Tt is evident that the Revolutionary notions that all men are 
 created equal, that taxation without representation is tyranny, 
 and that all governments derive their just powers from the con- 
 sent of the governed, had a considerable effect on the legisla- 
 tion that dealt with the negro in this period. Black men from 
 every state served in the American armies;*^ this fact no doubt 
 had some influence in legislative councils. It is practically 
 certain that the vast majority of white people in every colony 
 would have been miAvilling to let negroes vote in considerable 
 numbers, but, as long as the question of negro suffrage was 
 largely theoretical, as long as the absence of restrictions was 
 likely to occasion no real inconvenience, many law makers and 
 constitution makers were averse to marring their work by 
 provisions inconsistent with the watchwords of the Revolution, 
 and therefore permitted themselves to be influenced by senti- 
 ments similar to those which made the framers of the Federal 
 Constitution unwilling that its text should be sullied by the 
 name of slaverv. 
 
 *3Ibid., p. 382. 
 
 "Poore, I., p. 4a0. 
 
 « Livermore, G., An Historical Research, etc., Mass. Hist. 8oc. Proc, vol. IV., 
 pp. 86-248. Aug. 1S62 : Nell, W. C (Colored). Tfie Colored Patriots of th6 
 American Kevolution. 
 
 [20] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 21 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 A PERIOD OF REACTION, 1790 TO 1838 
 
 The first three States admitted to the Union under the Con- 
 stitution came in with no color distinction in their suffrage pro- 
 visions, Vermont in 1790, Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 
 1796. Kentucky's constitution of 1792, declared that all men, 
 when they form a social compact, are equal ; but the new con- 
 stitution of 1799 recognized equality in the foundation of a so- 
 cial compact only in the case of "/ree men," and confined the 
 right to vote to free white male citizens.^ Two years later 
 Maryland, which had passed in 1783 and re-enacted in 1796, a 
 law forbidding emancipated slaves to exercise the elective 
 franchise,- adopted, by a bill which passed both houses of the 
 legislature in November 1801, a constitutional amendment 
 which provided that only free white male citizens should be 
 electors.-^ This alteration was confirmed in November 1802, 
 and the word ''white" was retained in another suffrage amend- 
 ment adopted in 1809 and confirmed in 1810.* Perhaps the 
 amendment of 1801-3802 was not strictly enforced; for as late 
 as 1810, evidence was given in Baltimore county court that a 
 certain free black had been in the habit of voting at elections ; 
 and it is recorded that Greenbury Morton, a cousin of the fa- 
 mous negro clock-maker, Benjamin Banneker, did not know of 
 the law of 1809 until he attempted to vote at the polls in Balti- 
 more County, and that when his vote was refused, "he ad- 
 dressed the crowd in a strain of true and passionate eloquence, 
 
 1 Poore I., pp. 651, 654. 658, 670. 
 
 2 See ante p. 10. 
 
 3 Scharf, J. T., History of Marylancl.. Vol. II., p. 611. 
 
 * Maxey's Laws of Maryland, Revision of 1811, Vol. III. pp. 53. 54. See 
 also Revision ordered In 1817, Vol. III., pp. XXVII, XXVIII ; and Vol. IV, Ch. 8-3, 
 laws of 1809, and Ch. .33 of laws of 1810. 
 
 [21] 
 
22 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 which kept the audience, that the election had assembled for 
 him, in breathless attention while he spoke. "^ 
 
 Ohio, 1802 
 
 In 1802, the same year that the Maryland amendment was 
 confirmed, a constitution was adopted in Ohio. It cannot be 
 definitely determined whether free negroes had ever voted there 
 under the suffrage provision of the Ordinance of 1787. One 
 writer says that under the territorial government they voted 
 for delegates to the convention which framed the constitu- 
 tion.^ Yet in his dissenting opinion in the case of Thacker 
 V. Haivk in 1842, Justice Read, of the Supreme Court of 
 Ohio, declared that it was a fact familiar to old inhabitants 
 of the territory that "no negro, or person of any degree of 
 black blood, was ever permitted to vote" during the territorial 
 period. '^ During the session of the convention, various negro 
 questions were warmly and even bitterly discussed.^ Accounts 
 varv% but it is certain that the disfranchisement of negroes 
 was carried only by a very narrow majority. It is said that 
 at first an article was adopted without a color distinction, 
 but that on reconsideration, the discrimination was adopted 
 by the casting vote of the president of the convention, Mr. 
 Tiffin, a Virginian, who afterward became the first governor 
 of the state .^ 
 
 New Jersey, 1807 
 
 During all these years. New Jersey had been having a 
 unique experience. Her constitution of 1776 provided "that 
 all inhabitants of this colony" who had the requisite property, 
 
 5 Brackett, J. R., The Negro in Maruland, p. 1S6 ; Memoirs of Benjamin Ban- 
 neker, read May 1, 1845, by John H. Latrobe, Esq., p. 6, Maryland Hist. Soc. 
 Pub., 1845. 
 
 " Smith, W. H., A Political .History of Slavery, I., p. 1.3. 
 
 ' 11 Ohio, p. 376. 
 
 8 Transactions of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Part 
 Second, Vol. I., p. 111. Letter of Judge Burnet. 
 
 ^ Ihid., p. 109; Smith, W. H., Op. cit; King, R., Ohio, in American Common- 
 wealths; Ohio Con. Reports., 1850-51, 11., p. 1180; Cong. Olole, 3 S. 40 C, 
 App, 97. 
 
 [22] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 23 
 
 ^ge, and residence qualifications should be entitled to vote.^^ 
 This clause was interpreted literally. An act of 1790 regulat- 
 ing elections, used the words "he or she" in referring to 
 voters/^ and a similar law of 1797 provicied that "every 
 voter shall openly and in full view deliver his or her ballot 
 (which shall be a single written ticket, containing the names 
 of the person or persons for whom he or she votes) to the said 
 judges."^- It was recognized by the Supreme Court that 
 negroes were entited to vote. In 1794, the court held a cer- 
 tain election illegal because "the bare word of one man that 
 he was qualified, — the affirmation of a black man that he 
 had been manumitted was held sufficient to entitle these per- 
 sons to vote." The implication is that the suffrage would not 
 be with-held from a negro who could give clear evidence that 
 he had been emancipated. In 1797, there were seventy-five votes 
 cast by women in a single town. AVomen voted generally 
 throughout the state in the presidential election of 1800, and 
 in 1802 a candidate for the Legislature from Hunterdon county 
 carried a closely contested election by the votes of several female 
 negroes. At a local election in Essex county, in 1870, for the 
 location of a county seat, women as well as men were implicated 
 in extensive frauds.^" At last, the Legislature decided to inter- 
 pret the constitution more strictly. February 22, 1807, a law 
 was passed witli the following preamble: "Whereas doubts have 
 been raised, and great diversities in practice obtained through- 
 out the state in regard to the admission of aliens, females and 
 persons of color, or negroes to vote in elections, as also in regard 
 to the mode of ascertaining the qualifications of voters in respect 
 to estate. — And whereas, it is highly necessary to the safety, 
 quiet, good order and dignity of the state, to clear up the said 
 doubts by an act of the representatives of the people, deelara- 
 
 >»Poore, ir., p. IMll. 
 
 " \ paragraph from the Now York Tribune, quoted in ilcrherson's History 
 of Heconstruction, p. 2.5S, and re-quoted in Foster's Commentaries on the Con- 
 stitution, Vol. I., 320. 
 
 '-•Statutes of New Jersey, pp. 1S21, 275; or Patterson's Laws of New Jersey, 
 Kewark MDCCC, pp. 320 ; Cooley, H. S., A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, 
 JoJins Hopkin's Historical Studies, Vol. XIV., p. 464 ; Law Reports, I, Coxe, p. 
 244. Mr. Cooley's page reference and the date he assigns do not correspond 
 -with the edition of Coxe's Reports, which I consulted. 
 
 " McPherson, E., History of Rcconstruciion., p. 258. 
 
 [23] 
 
24 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 tory of the true sense and meaning of the constitution, and to 
 ensure its just execution in these particulars, according to the 
 intent of the framers thereof." In view of these considera- 
 tions it was enacted that no one should vote, "unless such person 
 be a /'Te, white, male citizen."^* The color discrimination was 
 repeated in a law of June 1, 1820,^'' and in 1844 it was made 
 a part of the constitution/*^ 
 
 Connecticut, 1818, Maine, 1819, Massachusetts, 1820 
 
 The only New England State that forbade negro suffrage 
 was Connecticut. In the Convention of 1818, the Committee 
 to whom the subject of drafting a Constitution was referred, 
 reported a suffrage article which was adopted apparently with- 
 out serious discussion. This article permitted only white male 
 citizens to come into the electorate after the ratification of the 
 Constitution, but provided that all who had previously been 
 admitted "freemen, according to the existing laws of this 
 state," should be electors.^' The latter clause was understood 
 by contemporaries to include negroes who had been exercising 
 the right to vote.^* Connecticut's negro population was 8,041 
 with 267,161 white persons,^^ and it is possible that negro voters 
 were becoming inconveniently numerous ; in IMassachusetts, 
 where there w-ere only 6,868 colored people with 516,419 white 
 people, it may have been easier to be liberal. In the jMassachusetts 
 convention which sat from November 15, 1820, to January 9, 
 1821, no reference was made to negro suffrage, although the 
 subject of qualifications for voting was discussed at length. ^^ 
 
 IMaine had already, more than a year before, shown evidence 
 of the New England feeling on the negro question. The consti- 
 tutional convention was in session from the 11th to the 29th of 
 
 ^* Lairs of the male of New Jersey, compiled and publishod nnder the author- 
 ity of the Leffislature, by Jos. Bloomfield, Trenton, ISll, p. 33. 
 
 ^^Statnfes of yew Jersey, published in 1821, p. 741. 
 
 ^"Poore. ir.. p. 131.^. 
 
 "Journal of the Convention of JS/S, printed in 1S73 by order of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, pp. 46, !)0 ; Poore, I., p. 263. 
 
 ^«Mr. Jay in the N. Y. Convention of 1821, Report, p. 1S4. 
 
 ^^ I?f(itis1if0l view of the popiilation of the I'nited States, Wash.. 183.5. 
 
 ^0 Convention Report, pp. 115, 116, 118, 121-25, 185, 186, 187, 222, 223, 
 249. 250, 277. 
 
 [24] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 2& 
 
 October, 1819. On the 20th, Ur. Vance of Calais, moved to 
 insert "Negroes" after "Indians not taxed," in the suffrage 
 article. Mr. Plolmes, who later as one of jNlaine's first United 
 States Senators, took part in the debate in Congress on the Mis- 
 souri question, opposed the motion with a brief and vigorous 
 speech. "The 'Indians not taxed' ", he said, "are excluded 
 not on account of their color, but of their political condition. 
 They are under the protection of the State, but they can make 
 and execute their own laws. They have never been considered 
 numbers of the body politic. But I know of no difference be- 
 tween the rights of the negro and the white man. — God 
 Almighty has made none. — Our Declaration of Rights has made 
 none. That declares that 'all men' (without regard to colors) 
 are born equally free and independent." Two speeches, which 
 were not reported, were made in favor of the motion, but it was 
 lost, and the Constitution was adopted without a discrimination 
 against Africans.-^ In discussing the right of one member to 
 his seat, the question arose whether the provision of the Massa- 
 chusetts constitution, that a representative must reside in the 
 town he represents, apjolied to a member of the convention. 
 It was repeatedly asked, according to Judge Thacher, wdiether 
 the convention would not have the right to turn out a minor 
 or black, if any town should happen to send one. No doubt it 
 was assumed as a matter of course that the presence of a black 
 man as a member of the convention would be intolerable. Judge 
 Thacher alone seems to have had the courage and disposition 
 to say that he did not believe the convention would have a 
 right to exclude such a representative on account of the color 
 of his skin.-- Only 929 negroes lived in Maine, in 1820,-^ and 
 there, as elsewhere, negro eriuality was much more a matter of 
 vei'bal consistency than of real feeling. 
 
 Elaine, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee were the only 
 states that came into the Federal Union without a suffrage 
 discrimination against negroes until the admission of Nebraska 
 
 -^ The Oeh'iies. Fe-ioliitinv.^, arul Oll;rr Procecdiiws of tlie Convention of 
 Delegates, etc.. .Tcremiah Perloy, Portland 1820, p. 95 ; see also Journal of the 
 Uonalittitional Convcntinn of the District of Maine, etc., 1819-20, printed 
 by Fuller and Fuller in 1856. 
 
 == Dehntcs, etc., p. 64. 
 
 23 Statistical View, 18:J5, p. 16. 
 
 [25] 
 
26 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 in 1867. Ever^' one of the other new states, north or south, 
 forbade black men to vote. Of the four that did not, Kentucky 
 adopted a color discrimination in 1799, and Tennessee in 1834, 
 while Vermont and Maine never had any kind of discrimina- 
 tion against Africans in their constitutions. 
 
 Federal Legislation 
 
 The Federal government in 1789 re-enacted the Ordinance 
 of 1787 with its impartial suffrage provision.-* In 1800, that 
 part of the ordinance which related to the organization of a 
 general assembly, and which included the suffrage clause, was 
 applied to Mississippi Territory-^' and to Indiana Territory.-" 
 In 1805, the provisions of the Mississippi act were extended 
 to the Territory of Orleans, the boundaries of which were then 
 about the same as those of the present state of Louisiana.-'^ 
 The frame of government, including the suffrage provision, out- 
 lined in the Ordinance of 1787, was re-enacted for the Terri- 
 tory of Michigan in 1805,-^ and for the Territory of Illinois 
 in 1809.-^ This was the last time until after the Civil War that 
 any act providing for a territorial government, which contained 
 a suffrage clause, did not exclude negroes from the right to 
 vote. It is to be noted, however, that, unlike most of the later 
 statutes which prescribed merely who should vote at the first 
 election and left the fixing of permanent suffrage qualifications 
 to the territorial legislature, the Ordinance of 1787 and the 
 extensions and re-enactments of it which have been mentioned, 
 settled who should be voters in all territorial elections and left 
 nothing to the discretion of the local government. 
 
 The enabling acts for Ohio in 1802,"*' and for Indiana in 
 1816,"^ contained no color distinction in designating who should 
 vote for delegates to the constitutional convention ; but the word 
 
 '■''* I'nore I., p. 4">;>. 
 
 ^IMd., II, p. 1051. 
 
 '<^Iliid., I., p. 4.^4. 
 
 2'/6irf., I., p. 696. 
 
 ^liid., p. 982. 
 
 '^Ihid., I., p. 4.3.5. 
 
 «»/6?VL, II., p. 1453. 
 
 3' Ibid., I., p. 497. 
 
 [26] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 27 
 
 ""white" was inserted in the acts for Louisiana in 1811, ■'- for 
 Mississippi in 1817,^^ for Illinois in 1818,^* for Alabama in 
 1819, and in all subsequent enabling acts before the Reconstruc- 
 tion period. But these were not the first important race dis- 
 criminations enacted by the Federal government. The word 
 ^' white" presented a barrier to the negro in the naturaliza- 
 tion law, approved INIarch 26, 1790,^^ in the militia law of May 
 8, 1792,^^'' and in the law approved May 3, 1802 to incorporate 
 the City of Washington, which confined the elective franchise to 
 ''free white male inhabitants."^^ By an act of 1804 providing 
 for the government of Louisiana and Orleans, onh^ "free male 
 white persons" were permitted to serve as grand or petit jurors 
 in the courts of the Territory.'-^ By an act of 1808, "extending 
 the right of suffrage in the Mississippi territory," it was pro- 
 vided that only whites should be entitled to vote for representa- 
 tives to the general Assembly."" This Mississippi law Avas the 
 first territorial act that contained the discrimination against 
 negroes with respect to the elective franchise, as the Illinois 
 law of the next year was the last that was free from it. 
 
 The ^Missouri Debate, 1820 
 
 This dry enumeration brings us to the discussions on the ad- 
 mission of ^Missouri, in which the omnipresent negro suffrage 
 question made its appearance. On Febiniary 28, 1820, in the 
 House of Representatives. Mr. Taylor moved an amendment to 
 the ^Missouri bill. Immediately John Randolph moved to insert 
 the word "white," "a matter — of some importance yet to those 
 on the south side," and proposed to speak at length, when IMr. 
 Tajdor accepted his amendment. After some discussion of the 
 bill, Mr. Allen of Massachusetts moved to strike the word 
 "white" from the suffrage clause of the enabling act, and made 
 
 «'Ibid., 1., p. 699 
 '^Ibid., II., p. 105.3. 
 ^Ibid., I., p. 436. 
 
 ■>^ Annals of Conpress. Vol. II., pp. 2264 or 2205-6; U. S. Statutes at Large, 
 Poston 1845. Vol. I., p. 10.3. 
 
 '■^Annals, ril, p. 1892; Statutes, T, p. 271. 
 ^''Annais, XT. p. K'.TT; Statutes, TI. p. 196. 
 ^Poore, I., p. 698. 
 ^Poore, II., p. 1052. 
 
 [27J 
 
28 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 a speech in favor of his motion. Mr. Kandolph replied, speak- 
 ing for an hour and a half. When the vote was taken, Mr. 
 Allen was the only man who rose in support of his amendment.*" 
 On the 7th and 8tli of December, 1820, there occurred in 
 the Senate a debate on that clause of the Missouri Constitution 
 which made it the duty of the Legislature to prohibit the immi- 
 gration of free negroes into the State. An amendment provid- 
 ing that Congress did not assent to this clause was rejected by 
 the votes of all but nine senators. Northern men continued 
 the argument with the assertion that the section excluding free 
 blacks violated the Constitutional provision that "the citizens 
 of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immuni- 
 ties of citizens in the several States." In IMassachusetts, New 
 Hampshire and Vermont, Africans had equal rights with v/hite 
 men, and, under the Constitution, they could not be deprived of 
 their equal rights if they should desire to settle in Missouri. 
 jMr. Smith, of South Carolina, replied by shoM'ing that nearly 
 all the Northern States had some legal discrimination against 
 free negroes, that some of them had laws against negro immigra- 
 tion from other states, and that, in the last session of the Penn- 
 sylvania legislature, a motion had been made to inquire into the 
 expediency of exclusion laws. The Southerners found a strong 
 ally in Senator Holmes of Maine, who, in the Maine Convention 
 of 1819, had cited the Declaration of Independence to prove 
 that negroes ought to be permitted to vote, and who now made 
 a speech which adds to the evidence that the presence of eman- 
 cipated slaves was hardly more welcome in the North than in 
 the South. "Their vices and frailties render them an incum- 
 brance, if not a nuisance, wherever they reside. It is just that 
 the evils arising from such a population should be sustained by 
 those who have had the benefit of their labor, and who have 
 contributed in some measure to their degradation." "To be 
 forced, against our will, to receive free blacks from the slave- 
 holding States, is a doctrine that I, as a Northern man, do not 
 so fully relish." He added that it was absurd to suppose that 
 the framers of the Constitution intended to sanction negro 
 
 <" Benton, T. H., ATiridfjement nf Dehatcs, VI., p. 561; Annals of Congress, 
 Vol. XXXVI., pp. l.")55, 1556. The substance of the speeches is not reported. 
 
 [28] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 29 
 
 equality. "Gentlemen, with all their humanity, to be obliged 
 to sit in this Senate by a black man, would consider their rights 
 invaded. "^^ The Maine Convention that gave negroes the right 
 to vote had also admitted that the presence of Africans as mem- 
 bers of a legislature would be intolerable. That men who made 
 these frank confessions of race prejudice should champion ne- 
 gro suffrage indicates how powerfully their minds were affected 
 hy the Revolutionary principles of liberty and equality. 
 
 New York, 1821 
 
 In New York, in 1785, two-thirds of the senate and a majority 
 of the assembly were in favor of forbidding negroes to vote; 
 but the suffrage was preserved to black men by a veto of the 
 Council of Revision.'*- On the 5th of April, 1811, the Council, 
 comprised of Governor Tompkins, Chancellor Lansing, ''"liief 
 Justice Kent, Justices Thompson, Spencer, Van Ness and Yates, 
 vetoed a bill entitled "An act to prevent frauds at elections, and 
 for other purposes. ' ' The obligations, written by Chancellor Lan- 
 sing, were: that the bill provided that "persons of color" must 
 produce certificates of their freedom at all elections ; that the 
 description of "persons of color" was too indefinite and might 
 be made to include all gradations of mixture between the Afri- 
 can and the white man; that no provision was made to compel 
 witnesses to testify before officers who are authorized to take 
 proof of a negro's freedom; and that the bill established the 
 principle "that all black men and men of color are presumed 
 to be slaves until they prove that they are free."*^ The bill 
 passed the Senate over the veto but failed to secure two-thirds 
 of the Assembly. At the same session, however, another bill 
 became law which likewise provided that, in order to vote, a 
 negro must prove his freedom, but which remedied the objection 
 that no adequate means were given a black man to secure proof 
 of his emancipation. This law was entitled "An act to prevent 
 frauds at elections and slaves from voting."^* In 1814, a new 
 
 "Ronton. AhrUlgement, VI., pp. 662. 664, 669. 670, 672-680, 691. 
 
 *- Ante, p. 17. 
 
 « Street, Neic York Council oj Revision, pp. 362-363, 364. 
 
 *^ Laics of New York; Revision of 1813, II., p. 253; Hard, II., p. 54. 
 
 [29] 
 
30 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 section applying only to New York City, provided that certifi- 
 cates of freedom should be recorded in the office of the registrar ; 
 and that a copy of the record should be the certificate of free- 
 dom which a free black was required to produce at elections 
 before he could votc*^ The obvious intent was to put difficul- 
 ties in the way of a negro elector; but that such a law was 
 passed, shows that negroes must have continued to vote in 
 small numbers after the veto of 1785, and helps explain why 
 the problem of negro suffrage came before the New York Con- 
 vention of 1821. 
 
 The old New York constitution of 1777 required a property 
 qualification of twenty pounds in order to vote for members of 
 the Assembly.^** i\Iost free negroes were therefore excluded from 
 the elective franchise, although it may be that negroes as well as 
 whites voted illegally. It was said that, in 1813, the votes of 
 three hundred free negroes in New York City decided the elec- 
 tion in favor of the Federalists and determined the character 
 of state legislature.*" If this statement is true, the fact may 
 account for the law of 181-4 for the recording of certificates of 
 freedom. But only one hundred and sixty-three negroes, it was 
 asserted, voted in New York at the spring election of 1821.*® 
 There were more than five hundred, however, who tried to vote^ 
 and it was estimated that if all property qualifications were abol- 
 ished, there would be twenty-five hundred negro electors in the 
 city of New York alone.*'' 
 
 "When the convention of 1821 met, it was a practical certainty 
 that the property qualifications for voters would be abolished. 
 The convention, therefore, had to consider the question whether 
 the liberal suffrage provision should extend to blacks as well 
 as to whites. The first proposition to be considered was an article 
 limiting the suffrage to white men. The debate began Septem- 
 ber 19, 1821. Those who favored restriction argued that it was 
 not a question of rights. ''That all men are free and equal, 
 according to the usual declarations," said Mr. Ross, "applies 
 
 *^ Laws oj ls!ew York, Thirty-IScventh Session, pp. 94, 95; Hurd, II., p. 55. 
 
 «Poore, II., 1334. 
 
 *' 1821 Con. Report, p. 212. 
 
 *»Ib'.d., p. 197, Gen. Tallmadge. 
 
 « Ibid., pp. 198, 199. 
 
 [30] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 31 
 
 to tlieni only in a state of nature, and not after the institution 
 of civil government, for then many rights, flowing from natural 
 equalit}^ are necessarily abridged, with a view to produce the 
 greatest amount of security and happiness to the whole com- 
 munity. ' '"" General Root explained his views of the social com- 
 pact: "In the formation of a social compact, which generally 
 grows out of exigency, when the people are but a little removed 
 from their barbarous and rude state, they are not particular 
 in enumerating the principles upon which they thus unite, 
 but when they have become more enlightened, they will under- 
 take to say who shall belong to their family. "^^ Colonel Young 
 denied that the right of voting was a natural right: ''A natural 
 right is one that is born with us. No man is born twenty-one 
 years old." If there were a natural, inherent right to vote, it 
 ought to be extended to women and children.^- Chief Justice 
 Spencer declared "that the community has a right to secure it& 
 own happiness and prosperity, and that we are authorized to 
 adopt all means that shall conduce to that end. "^'^ The ques- 
 tion, therefore, was altogether one of expediency; and it was 
 inexpedient and dangerous to let negroes vote in any consider- 
 able numbers. They could not vote discreetly and indepen- 
 dently. "They have no just conception of civil liberty. They 
 know not how to appreciate it and are consequently indifferent 
 to its preservation."^* They lacked intelligence. They were 
 born in slavery and would vote according to the behests of rich 
 men for whom they worked. "That man who holds in his 
 hands the subsistence of another, will always be able to control 
 his will." Negro suffrage would enable the rich man to control 
 many votes and would therefore foster an aristocracy.^^ Others 
 argued that negroes certainly ought not to be given the elective 
 franchise when it is with-held from the Indians, "the original 
 and only rightful proprietors of our soil," who were far superior 
 to negroes in intellingence and worth. ^® Black men were without 
 
 ^Ihid., p. 180. 
 
 5' Ibid., p. 18.5. 
 
 ''-Ibiff, p. 189. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 19.5. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 180. Ross. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 197, Chief-.7ustice Spencer. 
 
 ''Ibid., p. 181, Ross. p. 199, Livingston. 
 
 [31] 
 
32 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 education : many of the most intelligent could not write their own 
 names.^" They were a degraded race, partly indeed through the 
 white man's fault ;^^ the number of negroes in jails and peni- 
 tentiaries was out of all proportion to the negro population of 
 the State.^^ Africans were excluded from the militia and were 
 not called upon to defend the country.''" There was a universal 
 prejudice against black men : ''This distinction of color is well 
 understood. It is unnecessary to disguise it, and we ought to 
 shape our constitution so as to meet the public sentiment. ' ' Ne- 
 groes were not permitted to have social intercourse with whites, 
 nor be elevated to ottice, nor asked to serve on juries.''^ Yet if 
 they should be permitted to vote they would soon make the un- 
 speakable demand to be represented in the halls of legislation 
 by men of their own color.*'- It w- as true that only a few blacks 
 were voting; but emancipated slaves were tlocking into the 
 state, particularly into the metropolis,**^ and the abolition of 
 property qualilieations wouldi let loose upon the city of New 
 York an indescribable horde of ignorant, degraded negro elec- 
 tors.«-^ 
 
 The opponents of disfranchisement argued that it would vio- 
 late the second section of the fourth article of the Federal Con- 
 stitution. The riglit of suffrage was one of the privileges which 
 one state could not deny to the citizens of another.*'"' Rufus 
 King took this view. ' ' The question was not a pressing one now, 
 for emancipated slaves were not citizens; but their children 
 would be. As certainly as the children of any white man are 
 citizens, so certainly the children of black men are citizens ; and 
 they may in time raise up a progeny, which will be disastrous 
 to the other races of this country."*""' Chancellor Kent merely 
 expressed the opinion that the constitutionality of disfranchise- 
 
 "/6i<f., p. 198. Livingston. 
 ^Ihid., p. 198. Ch. J. Spencer. 
 ^^Ihid., p. 191, CoL Young. 
 «o/6i(f., p. 185, Ross, Gen. Root, 
 •n Ibid., p. 190, Col. Young. 
 «= Ibid., p. 181, Ross. 
 ''''Ibid., p. 196, C. J. Spencer. 
 "* Ibid., p. 199, Livingston. 
 «=76i<7., p. 184, Jay. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 192. Also The Life and Correspondence of Riifiis King, edited by 
 Cliiis. K. King, VI., p. 405, 400. 
 
 [32] 
 
OLBRICII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 33 
 
 ment was doubtful."' He also thought the word "white" too 
 sweeping and indefinite. "The Hindoo and Chinese are called 
 yellow — the Indian red ! Shall these be excluded should they 
 come to reside among us? Great efforts were now making in 
 the Christian world to enlighten and improve their condition, and 
 he thought it inexpedient to erect a barrier that should exclude 
 them forever from the exercise of this important right."**® No 
 one else expressed principles so broadly inclusive ; but several 
 were disposed to deny that the African was intrinsically inferior 
 to the Caucasian, though slavery might temporarily have degrad- 
 ed him. "It does not become those who have acted so unjustly 
 toward them to urge the results of that injustice as a reason for 
 perpetuating their degradation," said ]\Ir. Van Vechten.*'^ Mr. 
 Peter Augustus Jaj', the most fiery champion of the negro in 
 the convention, referred to the doctrine "that the intellect of a 
 black man is naturally inferior to that of a white one " as " com- 
 pletely refuted and universally exploded", and did not think it 
 worth while to disprove it. Slavery indeed made negroes im- 
 provident and worthless ; but, under the influence of schools and 
 churches, they were making rapid progress ;'" while the prejudice 
 of whites against blacks, which the association of slavery with a 
 dark complexion had produced, was already dying away, and 
 would disappear when slaverj^ should become unknown.'^ It 
 might be true tliat some negroes would obey "the dictates of the 
 purse proud aristocrats of the day, on whom they depend for 
 bread"; but their fault would be no greater than that of "many 
 thousands of white fawning, cringing sycophants." Moreover 
 it might confidently be hoped that the "redeeming spirit in 
 liberty" would ultimately regenerate these unfortunate people. "- 
 In order that free institutions might be fostered, the interests 
 of every class should be attached to the government ; but to dis- 
 franchise the Africans would "deprive them of every inducement 
 to become respectable members of society," would be ordaining 
 
 8' 1821 Uoii. Keport, p. lUl. 
 
 ««/6W., 
 
 '^Tbid., p. 19.3. 
 
 ^rbid., p. 184. 
 
 ^^IMd., p. 201. 
 
 'nbid., p. 188. R. Clarke. 
 
 [33], 
 
34 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 that they become "fugitives, vagabonds, and outcasts," would 
 compel them and their posterity to be the enemies of the whites, 
 and cause them to view the white man's political institutions 
 "with distrust, jealousy, and hatred."'^ 
 
 No one of the negro's champions pretended to regard him as 
 a desirable citizen. It was unnecessary, Mr. Jay argued, to 
 stain the Constitution with an odious discrimination merely to 
 exclude a race that constituted only one-fortieth of the popula- 
 tion of New York City, and whose numbers had remained sta- 
 tionary while the whites had multiplied. If black men were 
 numerous, it might be dangerous to enfranchise or even eman- 
 cipate them.'^* "I lament as much as any gentleman," said 
 Mr. Clarke, "that we have this species of population amongst 
 
 us. But we have them here without any fault of theirs. 
 
 I would do them justice, and leave the consequences to the 
 righteous disposal of an all-wise and merciful Providence. "^^ 
 These apostles of equality asserted that the prejudice, which 
 they themselves shared and which everywhere prevailed, was 
 wrong. "Do our prejudices against their colour destroy their 
 rights as citizens?" inquired Mr. Van Vechten. "Whence do 
 those prejudices proceed? are they founded in impartial reason, 
 
 or in the benevolent principles of our holy religion? People 
 
 of color are our fellow candidates for immortality . The 
 
 same path to future happiness is appointed for them and us."^** 
 "How sir," Mr. Jay exclaimed, "can that argument be an- 
 swered by reason which is not founded on reason?" Merely to 
 gratify a prejudice, the Convention had no right to establish a 
 degraded and discontented caste or to condemn the negroes to 
 be aliens in their native land."^ "However we may scorn, and 
 insult and trample upon this unfortunate race now, the day 
 was fast approaching when we must lie down with them in that 
 narrow bed appointed for all the living."^® The disfranchise- 
 ment of Indians was on a different basis : they were members 
 
 "•^Ihid., p. 188. 
 
 '*/6id., p. 184-5. 
 
 '^IMd., p. 189. 
 
 '•76tU, p. 194. 
 
 "Tliid., p. 201. 
 
 ''*Ihid., p. 365. ' I . ' 
 
 [34] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 35 
 
 of tribes with which treaties were made as with other nations,'^ 
 but negroes were born neighbors and fellow-citizens of the 
 whites. They were excluded from the militia, but they had been 
 welcome volunteer soldiers when actual war occurred, both in 
 the Revolution and the War of 1812. No one would stand in 
 the ranks, shoulder to shoulder with negroes in time of peace: 
 But when the hour of danger approaches, your "white" militia 
 are just as willing that the man of color should be set up as a 
 mark to be shot at by the enemy, as to be set up themselves.®" 
 Disfranchising the negro would be too much of a concession to 
 prejudice, too great a surrender to the spirit of slaver^'. It 
 would be regarded as a victory by the Southerners who had 
 opposed negro rights in the Missouri debate in Congress, and 
 the proposed exclusion of black men from the elective franchise 
 would be greeted by the slaveholders with "a shout of triumph 
 and a hiss of scorn. "®^ 
 
 On the 20th of September a vote was taken and the word 
 "white" was stricken out, 63 to 59.®- What sentiments 
 moved the majority? No doubt the arguments reviewed had 
 much influence, especially the argument that it was unnecessary 
 to "stain" the constitution when the number of blacks was so 
 small. A few days later, in the discussion of another phase of 
 the suffrage, Martin Van Buren delivered a florid period on 
 "taxation and representation". These words, he said, "were 
 never heard in our halls of legislation, without bringing to our 
 recollections the consecrated feelings of those who won our lib- 
 erties, or without reminding us of everything that was sacred 
 
 in principle . They offered the strongest evidence of 
 
 their continued hold upon our feelings and our judgments, by 
 the triumph they effected, over the strongest aversions and 
 prejudices of our nature — on the question of continuing the right 
 of suffrage to the poor degraded blacks. ' '®^ As soon as the vote 
 was taken, General Root renewed an amendment which he had 
 offered on the previous day which excluded from the electorate 
 
 •»76jrf., p. 200. 
 
 M/ftu/., p. 187, R. Clarke. 
 
 8> IJ}id., p. 184. .Tay. 
 
 »-Ibid.. p. 202. 
 
 ^nUT., p. 2.'.7 
 
 [35] 
 
36 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 all who would not if able-bodied and of full age be liable to 
 militia service.*"' His avowed object was to disfranchise negroes 
 who were excluded from the militia by federal law ; lint he 
 urged the use of this indirect method because it would "preserve 
 the delicacy of language, observable in the Constitution of the 
 United States, which nowhere uses the word slave.'"'"' 
 
 Whether the object in view was "delicacy of language" or 
 the welfare of the negro, the vote of September 20 did not repre- 
 sent the real sentiment of the convention. Several amendments 
 were offered which discriminated against negroes by requiring of 
 them higher qualifications than of white men.**" A resolution was 
 passed referring the subject to a select committee of thirteen. Of 
 the members appointed by Daniel D. Tompkins, president of the 
 convention,^" nine had voted in the negative on striking out the 
 word "white".'** Their report, which provided that men of 
 color should not be permitted to vote unless they had resided 
 in the state three years, and owned and hacll paid taxes on a 
 freehold estate worth two hundred and fifty dollars above all 
 incumbrances, that no person of color should pay any taxes 
 unless he owned real estate of this value, and that white men 
 could vote after one year's residence and payment of taxes or 
 the rendering of highway and militia service,*^ came before 
 the convention on the 6th of October."" The discrimination 
 against blacks was no doubt a compromise of conflicting opin- 
 ions."^ There was an influential element in the convention, rep- 
 resented by Chancellor Kent, Rufus King,"- and Mr. Piatt, who 
 favored a property qualification but were opposed to color dis- 
 tinctions. Kent was willing to accept the proviso because it left 
 the negro some hope. The prospect of becoming a voter would 
 encourage industry and thrift: "But he was unwilling to see 
 them disfranchised and the door eternally barred against 
 
 ^*Jhiil., p. 202. 
 
 ""'-Ihiil., p. 186. 
 
 ^f' Ibid., p. 290. Wendovpr. and P.irdspye. p. 201, Radcliffc and R. Smith. 
 
 ^'/ftirf., p. 657. 
 
 '"'IMd., pp. 202, 289-00. 
 
 s9 ,Poore, II., p. 134.'^. 
 
 ""1821 Con. Report., p. .iri7. 
 
 »' Ihid., p. .346, Tallmadse : p. .370. Yoiins. 
 
 ^ima., p. 287. 
 
 [36] 
 
OLBRICri— XEGEO SUFFRAGE S7 
 
 them. "-^ Van Buren f^ivored. the report of the committee be- 
 cause it held out induconents to industry and because it ex- 
 empted negroes from taxation until they had qualified themselves 
 to vote."* ]Mr. Briggs, who wished to disfranchise negroes alto- 
 gether, urged that property was no more a just test for black 
 voters than for white voters;"^ he ridiculed the idea that the 
 right of suffrage would elevate the negro, and impatiently 
 asked "whether it would elevate a monkey or a baboon to allow 
 them to vote."'"' Mr. Bacon declared that it was wrong to 
 introduce a principle of caste without a strong political neces- 
 sity. The negroes were so few that no danger was to be appre- 
 hended from permitting them to vote. If they were to be exclud- 
 ed from the electorate, it would be more honorable to exclude 
 them directly, for the property qualification would disfranchise 
 practically every one of them. Mr. Eastwood said he was op- 
 posed to "letting in black vagabonds to vote", but felt more 
 liberal than the select committee, and therefore moved to strike 
 out two hundred and fifty dollars and insert one hundred dol- 
 lars. His motion was lost, and the report of the committee was 
 carried by a vote of 72 to 31. 
 
 Immediately Mr. Piatt, who had previously voted to strike 
 out "white", moved to expunge the proviso relating to men of 
 color. He was not disposed to be the black man 's knight errant : 
 "But the obligations of justice are eternal and indispensable." 
 He admitted that few negroes could vote properly; but, instead 
 of "this unjust and odious discrimination of colour," he would 
 adopt a qualification that would exclude also the "ignorant and 
 depraved white men". Negroes were just beginning to make 
 progress. It would be wrong to discourage them, especially by 
 this dishonest indirection. "The real object is, to exclude the' 
 oppressed and degraded sons of Africa ; and, in my humble judg- 
 ment, it would better comport with the dignity of this conven- 
 tion to speak out, and to pronounce the sentence of perpetual 
 
 "^JMd., p ;J64. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 376. Also Sharpe, p. ;^G4, see also Shepard, E. M., Martin Van 
 liuren, American Slatesmcn Series, p. 6S. 
 •5 1821 Con. Report, p. ."fi4. 
 ^"'Itid.. p. 36.J. 
 
 [37] 
 
38 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 degradation, on negroes and their posterity forever, than to 
 establish a test which we know they cannot comply with and 
 which we do not require of others.""' There were 71 votes 
 against Mr. Piatt's motion and only 33 for it. Four of the 33 
 had voted against striking out the word "white". The remain- 
 ing 29 therefore represent the real strength of the sentiment 
 in favor of putting negroes on an equality with white men with 
 respect to the elective franchise. Among them were such notable 
 men as Piatt, the two Van Rensselaers, Rufus King and Chan- 
 cellor Kent. An examination of the vote with respect to the 
 nativity of members fails to show that natives of New England 
 voted for suffrage in larger proportion than natives of New 
 York. Nor does there seem to have been anything noteworthy 
 about the geographical distribution of the vote. New York City 
 had the most considerable negro population, and it was said 
 that, before the meeting of the convention, restrictions on the 
 negro's right to vote were expected or desired only by some citi- 
 zens of New York.°^ Yet, of the eleven members from New York 
 County, five voted aye on striking out the word "white", only 
 four voted no, and two M^ere absent ; and three New York mem- 
 bers voted against the discriminating property requirement. 
 
 It is hardly warrantable to call a convention, which greatly 
 restricted the negro 's right to vote by raising the property quali- 
 fication for black men from £20 to $250 and abolished it alto- 
 gether for white men, "a dominant emancipating agent in 
 American democracy.'"*" Nevertheless there had undoubtedly 
 been, since the veto of 1785, appreciable progress of opinion 
 favorable to the African race. In 1785, nearly two thirds of 
 both houses of the legislature wished to deprive negroes of the 
 elective franchise altogether. In 1821, a majority were opposed 
 to absolute denial of the suffrage and a considerable minority 
 refused to sanction any restriction that did not apply to whites 
 as well as blacks. Mr. Piatt pointed to the change of opinion on 
 slavery since the time, sixty years before, when the colonial 
 
 ^' Jbia., pp. 374, 37.5. 
 
 »» lUd., p. 195, Van Vechten. 
 
 s» Thorpe, F. N., Conntitutional History of the American People, II., p. 353. 
 
 [38] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 39 
 
 assembly passed a law with the preamble: "Whereas justice 
 and good policy require, that the African slave trade should 
 be liberally encouraged. " ^""^ " The astonishing progress of the 
 human mind, in regard to religious toleration; the various plans 
 of enlightened benevolence ; and especially the mighty efforts 
 of the wise and good throughout Christendom, in favour of the 
 benighted and oppressed children of Africa,"^ had no doubt 
 produced a "visible decay of prejudice."- Even if it had been 
 intended to disfranchise all negroes indirectly, it meant much 
 that men had come to feel ashamed to adopt an express exclu- 
 sion of Africans from the right to vote. It is also significant 
 that Mr. Jay, the negro's most ardent champion, opposed dis- 
 franchisement because the South would regard it with a feeling 
 of triumph. In 1778, the opponents of equal rights in Massa- 
 chusetts had advanced the idea that the South would be offend- 
 ed. But in 1821, the Missouri struggle had roused the temper 
 of many Northerners and there was henceforward a growing 
 tendency with respect to negroes : "To befriend them in the 
 spirit of political opposition, as well as from the gentler dic- 
 tates of human pity. "^ 
 
 Tennessee, 1834 
 
 The next state that took decisive action on negro suffrage was 
 Tennessee. The suffrage clause of the constitution of 1796 was 
 probably not intended to confer the elective franchise on negroes, 
 for it was adopted without debate; * but, as there was no express 
 prohibition, negroes sooner or later began voting.^ Negro voters 
 must have become numerous enough to constitute an important 
 element, for it is said : ' ' The opposing candidates, for the nonce 
 oblivious of social distinction and intent only on catching votes, 
 hobnobbed with the men and swung corners all with dusky 
 
 »w>/ft»d., p. 37.^). 
 
 ^Jbia., 375. 
 
 ^Wright, Mannerx in America, p. 73. 
 
 » ibia., p. 71. 
 
 * Sanford. E. T.. The Constitutional Convention 0/ Tennessee of 1796, reprinted 
 from the Proceedings of the Bar Assoc, of Tenn. for 1896, p. 31. 
 
 ^n%d; also Studies in the Constitutional History of Tennessee, Joshua W. 
 Caldwell, p. i)3. 
 
 [39] 
 
40 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 damsels at election balls.''" John Bell and Cave Johnson said 
 that they were elected to Congress by the aid of colored men's 
 votes, the latter boasting that he owed his election in 1828 to 
 one hundred and forty-four free negroes who worked in his 
 mills.^ However a strong opposition to negro suffrage was grow- 
 ing up. The exigencies of slavery made free negroes less and 
 less welcome while the liberal suffrage clause seemed to draw 
 more and more of them into the state. The people of Tennessee 
 became anxious to check their immigration.- During the twen- 
 ties, the anti-slavery agitation in the North and the growing 
 pro-slavery sentiment in the South, produced throughout Tenn- 
 essee, strong manifestation of opposition to negro citizenship. 
 The laws against free negroes became stricter, and at length, on 
 December 16, 1831, the legislature forbade them to enter the 
 state and provided that slaves should not be freed except on 
 condition that they be removed from the commonwealth as soon 
 as they might be emancipated.^ The constitution of 1834 con- 
 fined the suffrage to white men, but provided : ' ' that no person 
 shall be disqualified from voting in any election on account of 
 color who is now, by the laws of this State, a competent wit- 
 ness in a court of justices against a white man."^" The anti- 
 slavery sentiment was still strong and the convention was far 
 from unanimous : the suffrage clause was carried by a vote of 
 thirty-three to twenty-three.^^ It was also provided that only 
 those qualified under the proposed article could vote on the 
 amended constitution."^- 
 
 " Quoted by Weeks in Pol. Soc. Quarterly., IX., p. 67(3, from Buxton's, Rem- 
 iniscences 0/ the Bench and Fayettevllle Bar. 
 
 ' Weeks, p. 676, who refers to Summer's Works, X., p. 192 ; The Works oj 
 James At)raham GareflUJ. edited by B. A.' Hinsdale, I., p. 89 ; also Conf). Olohe, 
 1 S. 38 C, p. 3305, May 24, 38.54, Mr. Petit; and, 2S. 38 C, 284, Jan. 16, 
 
 3 mr,. 
 
 "Caldwell, Studies, pp. 93, 113. 
 
 " [(Joodspeed] History of Tennessee, pp. 755, 1756. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 225; Poore, II., p. 1683. This provision excluded "All negroes. 
 Indians, Mulattoes and all persons of mixed blood, descondea from negro and 
 Indian ancestors, to the third generations inclusive," and all freedmen, of 
 whatever blood, for twelve months after emancipation. Revision of 1831, p. 
 377; Revision of 1836, p. 712. 
 
 " Garfield, J. A., Works, I., p. 89. 
 
 " Caldwell, Studies, p. 226. 
 
 [40] 
 
olbrich— negro suffrage 41 
 
 North Carolina, 1835 
 
 Up to this time there had been a strong anti-slavery sentiment 
 in the border shwe states. In the western parts of Virginia 
 and the Carolinas, in Northern Georgia and in eastern Ken- 
 tucky and Tennessee, anti-slavery agitation up to 1830 was more 
 vigorous than anywhere in the northern states. It was especially 
 strong in western North Carolina which was a region of small 
 farms and democratic ideals and which contained a considerable 
 Quaker population. From 1830, however, southern anti-slavery 
 societies began to pass out of existence and by 1840 Southern 
 anti-slavery sentiment had been practically silenced." These 
 facts help account for the history of negro suffrage in that 
 staff. The constitution of 1776 did not expressly- forbid negroes 
 to vote.^"* During the Revolution many of them were employed 
 as soldiers, some took the oath of allegiance,'^'' as early as 1778 
 they were recognized as citizens,^" and it seems probable that 
 some negroes continued to exercise the electoral privilege from 
 early colonial times down, and that, during and after the Revo- 
 lution as the number of free blacks increased, there was a great 
 increase in the number of black voters.^^ They even formed 
 political alliances, in some northern counties became an impor- 
 tant factor in elections, made friends of the party allies and 
 foes of their party opponents.^^ Whether or not the framers of 
 the constitution expected negroes to vote, there is no doubt ' ' that 
 a long and silent acquiescence in the enjoyment of certain poli- 
 tical rights . . . created a violent presumption in their 
 favor. "^^' As they l^ecame inconveniently numerous, there arose 
 
 "Bassett. .T. S., Anti-SJarerii Leaders of liorth Carolina, Johns Hopkins' His- 
 iorical /Studies, XVI.. p. 267; "UTceks, S. B., Anti-Slavern Sentiment in the South, 
 Publications of the Southern Histonj Ass'n.. April, 180S, II., pp. 8T, 88. 89, 
 93. 
 
 "Poore, II.. p. l-ni. 
 
 " JV. C. Con. Report., p. ;!o4. 
 
 '"Weeks. S. B., Pol. Soc. Quarterly., IX.. p. 67.5. 
 
 '^ Bassett. J. S., Slaveri/ in the State of N. Carolina, Johns Hopkins' Historical 
 (Studies, XVIT., p. a.i4. 
 
 ^^IMd; also Dodge, J).. The Free Negroes of North Carolina, Atlantic Month- 
 ly., Jan 1886, vol. LVII., p. 25. 
 
 «2V. C. Con. Report., p. GS, Mr. Bryan. 
 
 [41] 
 
42 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 a demand that they be disfranchised. This demand became 
 stronger with the growth of pro-slavery sentiment in opposition 
 to anti-slavery agitation in the North.-'' In 1826, Bartlett 
 Yancey wrote, that in all the counties and nearly all the towns 
 of the state there was hostility to negro suffrage due to the 
 work of colonization and abolition societies.'^ He probably re- 
 ferred to the anti-slavery societies in North Carolina which were 
 then 50 in number and had 3,000 members.-- A law was passed 
 forbidding negroes or mulattoes to hold office.-^ The convention 
 of 1835, by the law which provided for calling it, was empowered 
 to consider the disfranchisement of free negroes.-* By this time 
 the colored people, because of indisposition or fear of whites, 
 had ceased voting in some communities,-^ while in some places 
 they had probably never voted. In the convention of 1835 it 
 was said that "in several of the Eastern counties they are not 
 permitted to vote, and they have acquiesced in this determina- 
 tion with cheerfulness and contentment."--' Representatives 
 from Iredell and Perquimons asserted that free blacks had never 
 voted in either of those counties.-" On the other hand, it was 
 said that there were 300 colored voters in Halifax, 150 in Hert- 
 ford, 50 in Chowan, and 75 in Pasquotank;-^ and by another 
 member that it would be impossible to ascertain the number of 
 white voters, because half the clerks in their returns to the 
 comptroller's office, failed to distinguish between black and white 
 polls.-® 
 
 The convention liegan the discussion of negro suffrage on the 
 12th of June, 1835. The friends of the African seem to have 
 had no hope of securing for him equal voting privil,eges with 
 white men. They put forth all their efforts to secure a property 
 qualification that would permit some negroes to retain the val- 
 
 =" Bassett, .1. S., op. cit. 
 
 -' Weeks ; Pol. ISci. Quar., IX., p. 676. 
 
 " Weeks, Southern Historical Assoc. Pub., II., p. 89. 
 
 =^ Bassett, op. cit.; N. C. Con. Report., p. 71. 
 
 "Bassett, op. cit.; N. C. Con. Report., p. 66. 
 
 ^ Bassett, op. cit. 
 
 ""N. C. Con. Report. 18.35. p. 69, Mr. Bryan. 
 
 -' Ibid., p. 353, King, p. 355, Wilson. 
 
 -^Ibid., pp. 70, 80. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 30. 
 
 [42] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 43 
 
 ued right and offered several propositions looking to that end.^" 
 The first of these, introduced by ]Mr. Daniel, was avowedly 
 modelled after the New York provision and, like it, provided 
 that no free person of color should have the right to vote unless 
 he possessed a freehold worth $250.^^ The adoption of such a 
 clause would "leave the door open to all colored men of good 
 character and industrious habits," who would find no difficulty 
 in obtaining the necessary qualification."- Judge Gaston pro- 
 tested that a negro who was an honest freeholder and perhaps 
 a Christian, "should not be politically excommunicated, and 
 have an additional mark of degradation fixed upon him on 
 account of his color. ' '"^ He and several other members appealed 
 to the fear of slave insurrections.^* The denial of the suffrage 
 would be regarded by free negroes as indicative of an intention 
 to degrade and reduce them to a condition akin to slavery.'^ 
 "If we close the door entirely against this unfortunate 
 clcsss of our population," said Mr. Moorhead, "we may light 
 up the torch of commotion among our slaves. "^'^ The result 
 might be scenes of desolation and distress. Kindly treatment of 
 the respectable negroes would attach them to the white popula- 
 tion and as in the West Indies and other places, would make 
 them serviceable in disclosing symptoms of discontent among the 
 slaves."" 
 
 Only one of the men who advanced this argument 
 from expediency was bold enough to declare that it was suffi- 
 cient for him that 'they are human beings, and free agents, and 
 have a free will."^^ Mr. Kelly contended "for the broad 
 principle that all men are entitled to equal rights,""'' and Mr. 
 Toomer asserted that to abrogate the black man's right to vote 
 
 ■'»/6Jri, p. 60, Daniel, p. 73, Shobor. p SO. Mooiiicad, p. 352. Gaston, p. 353. 
 Fishor, Holmes, p. .">57, Dockery- 
 
 "/OJrf., pp. 60, 61. 
 
 ■'^ Jbid. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 79. 
 
 '^Ihid., pp. 79, 72, 354. Holmes, p. 73, Sliober, p. 74, Giles, p. SO, Moor- 
 head. 
 
 ''" Ihid., p. 352, Gaston. 
 
 3« Ibid., p. SO. 
 
 »' Ibid.., Holmes pp. 72, 353. 
 
 ■"'Ibid., p. 72, Shober. 
 
 s« Ibid., p. 356. - 
 
 [43] 
 
44 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 "would be tyranny; and the plea of policy could not alter the 
 ease, as that had, in all ages, been the cry of tyrants, to justify 
 their oppressions. "■'° Mr. Daniel reminded the convention that 
 negroes had fought in the war for independence.^^ Nor was the 
 injustice of taxation without representation forgotten.*- "It 
 is contrary to all the principles of free government," said Mr. 
 Kelly, "to tax a man and refuse him a right to vote for a mem- 
 ber of the Legislature who lays the tax."*^ Most of the friends 
 of the negroes however, seemed willing to admit that a black 
 man was not as good as a white man.^^ jMr. Daniel declared that 
 his observation during thirty years past showed that 
 the colored man of property and standing uniformly voted for 
 representatives of talents and good character, but he admitted 
 there were many worthless l^lacks to whom the suffrage ought 
 to be denied.*^' ]\Ir. Holmes said': "Such of them as possess prop- 
 erty, and are of good standing, ought to be distinguished from 
 those of the class who are vicious and disorderly. j\Iany of them 
 are in a degraded and corrupt state.'*" From an opposite view 
 point, the negroes' enemies gave about the same testimony. They 
 admitted that there were a few exemplary and meritorious 
 negroes, but thought it bad policy to attempt a line of distinction 
 between the worthy and the unworthy.*" Most of them were 
 incapable of voting judiciously: "With a little drink and some 
 trifle, they could be bought like a lot of poultry."*^ They did 
 not vote for the best men: "Any candidate who would asso- 
 ciate with them, might obtain their vote, however low his qualifi- 
 cations. "*" Their want of education, the tame spirit of submis- 
 sion with which they are moulded to the will of an influential 
 neighbor renders it entirely impolitic that they should enjoj^ the 
 
 ^ojbia., p. 80. 
 *-JM(l., p. 61. 
 « Ibid., p. 72, Shober. 
 ^^Jbid., p. :^,56. 
 
 ^* Bassett, Suffrage in N. Uarntina, Report of the Am. Hist. Assoc, 180.T 
 p. 278. 
 
 «iV. C. Con. Report., IS.^S., pp. 61-6:(. 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 72. 
 
 *" Ibid., p. 7.5, Crodop and McQueen. 
 «/7>jV7., pp. 79, 80, Cooper, Wilson. 
 i^ Ibid., p. 74, Crodop. 
 
 [44] 
 
OLIJRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 45 
 
 privilege."'" Public opinion was on the side of the opponents of 
 negro suffrage. -It had come to pass that the support of negroes 
 was an element of weakness to a politician. Opposing candi- 
 dates twitted each other about this part of their constituency and 
 declared themselves willing to throw out every free negro ballot 
 if their opponents would follow their example. Twenty years 
 ago (1906) there was still a tradition among the negroes of 
 Granville county that they had been disfranchised because of 
 their persistent supjiort of an able and unscrupulous demagogue 
 named Potter.''^ 
 
 However well or ill colored men may have been qualified to 
 vote, their possession of the elective franchise, as the enemies of 
 negro suffrage were not slow to point out, was decidedly incon- 
 gruous with their general position in the l)ody politic.'- "The 
 negro," said ]\Ir. McQueen, "came here debased; he is yet de- 
 based, and there is no sort of polish which education or circum- 
 stances can give him. which ever v\ill reconcile the whites to an 
 extension of the right of suffrage to the free negro.""'" Even a 
 free mulatto, he continued, could have no permanent interest in 
 or attachment to the community: "He finds the door of of- 
 fice closed against him, by the bars and bolts of pul)lic senti- 
 ment; he finds the circle of respectable society closed against 
 him, let him conduct himself with as much propriety as he may; 
 he finds himself suspended between two classes of society — the 
 white and the black — condemned by the one and despised by the 
 other; and when his favorite candidate in an election prevails, 
 it communicates no gratification to his breast, for the candidate 
 will be a white man, and he knows full well that the white man 
 eyes him with contempt."'^* Mr. Wilson said: "We already ex- 
 clude a colored person from giving testimony against a white 
 person. A white man may go to the house of a free black, mal- 
 treat and abuse him. and commit any outrage upon his family— 
 
 ^"Ibicl., p. 7!). Wilson. 
 
 31 Atlantic Monthly, 1S86.. LVII.. p. 25. 
 
 ^- "The strange anomaly of a class incompetent to testify in court, and other- 
 wise almost as destitute of rights as brutes, exercising a function everywhere 
 deemed the first of privilosrs, and which the vast mass of freemen in the most 
 ^'nllghtened countries of the world are yet striving to attain." Ihtd. 
 
 ="JV. C. Con. Report, IS'Mi, p. 77. 
 
 " -V. C. Con. Report., 18.^5, p. 78. 
 
 [45] 
 
46 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 for all wliitih the law cannot reach him, unless some vviiite person 
 saw the act committed. ' '^'^' Mr. Bryan asked : ' ' What becomes 
 of the inalienable rights of these boasted freemen and citizens, 
 when the legislature of our own state has passed an act, author- 
 izing the courts, upon conviction of any of them, for a paltry 
 misdemeanor, and an inability on their part to pay the costs thus 
 incurred, that they be hired out for the same? If the same 
 policy had been adopted with regard to free white citizens, is 
 there a doubt in this convention, but that with one voice, from 
 the mountains to the sea-shore, the people, the judiciary, and all 
 the powers of the government, would have declared that the act 
 was void, and that it was an unconstitutional deprivation of the 
 liberties and privileges of a freeman ! It cannot be disguised, 
 that there is a vast and mighty difference between the Constitu- 
 tional rights and privileges of a free white man and a free 
 negro, or else the legislative construction and acts have done 
 gross and violent injustice to this unfortunate class of inhabit- 
 ants."^® He denied that free negroes Avere citizens. The legislat- 
 ure had not interpreted the clause of the Federal Constitution 
 concerning the privileges and immunities of citizens to include 
 black men. North Carolina had put severe restrictions on their 
 immigration into the state, and most states forbade them to vote. 
 If negroes were citizens, all commonwealths that denied them the 
 elective franchise were violating the Constitution of the Union.^'" 
 They could not be called freemen within the meaning of the 
 constitution of North Carolina.^^ "This is a nation of white 
 people — its offices, dignities and privileges, are alone open to, 
 and to be enjoyed by, white people."^'' To these declarations. 
 Judge Gaston replied by a legal argument. Before the Revolu- 
 tion, the few freemen of color were chiefly mulattoes. the children 
 of white women, and necessarily citizens, as in the law they fol- 
 lowed the condition of their mothers. When the emancipation 
 of slaves began, the act which directed the manner in which they 
 might be manumitted, expressly declared them entitled to all the 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. so. 
 ^"Ibia., p. 66. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 64. 
 lis Ibia., p. 65.' 
 ^■'Ibta., p. 67. 
 
 [46] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 47 
 
 rights and privileges of colored freemen.'^'' It was true that they 
 could not give evidence against white men ; but on precisely anal- 
 agous grounds, the Civil Law forbade a father to give evidence 
 for his son, or a son for his father.'^^ Three years later. Judge 
 Gaston had occasion, in delivering an opinion of the supreme 
 court of the state, to elaborate his argument.*^- "Whatever dis- 
 tinctions may have existed in the Roman law between citizens 
 and free inhabitants, they are unknown to our institutions," 
 "Slaves manumitted here become freemen — and therefore if 
 born within North Carolina are citizens of North Carolina — and 
 all free persons born within the state are bom citizens of the 
 State." Negroes had been permitted to vote under the old 
 constitution: "And it is a matter of universal notoriety that 
 under it, free persons, without regard to colour, claimed and 
 exercised the franchise until it was taken from freemen of colour 
 a few years since by our amended constitution." Yet he was 
 compelled to recognize the existing black laws, and was forced to 
 argue, in effect, that a man might be a citizen under disabilities 
 that in most respects would make his citizenship meaningless. 
 
 The race feeling against negroes came out still more strongly 
 in other arguments that were advanced by the advocates of dis- 
 franchisement. The argument, which had been used in Mass- 
 achusetts in 1778, in New York in 1821, and was yet to be heard 
 in the discussions of the next thirty years, that negroes would 
 come into the state was not overlooked. "Our good old State," 
 said Mr. Bryan, "will become the asylum of free negroes; they 
 will come in crowds from the North, South and West and we 
 shall be overrun by a miserable and worthless population. If we 
 hold out inducements to any portion of the human race, to come 
 and settle amongst us, let it be to those of sober, honest and in- 
 dustrious habits, and such as feel an interest in and duly appreci- 
 ate the institutions of the country."*'^ Another cry, afterward 
 to be uttered with unusual vigor in Pennsylvania, was: "No 
 amalgamation of colors."*'* Mr. Wilson said "that however much 
 
 '^Ibid., pp. :i51, 352. 
 
 '^IDia., p. 357. 
 
 0^ state V. Manuel, Dec. 18.38. 4 Devereux d Battle, p. 20. 
 
 "N. C. Con. Report, 18::55, p. 68. 
 
 ••/Oirf. p. 67. 
 
 [47] 
 
48 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 colored persons might be elevated, their color alone would prove 
 a harrier to keep them in a degraded state. And the moment a 
 free mulatto obtains a little property, and is a little favored by 
 being admitted to vote, he will not be satisfied with a black wife. 
 He will soon connect himself with a white woman. ""^ It was 
 argued that negro suffrage might lead to negro office-holding, 
 and it was apparentlj^ assumed that the election of black justices 
 and sheriffs would of course be intolerable.'"^ To the argument 
 that free negroes had served faithfully in the Revolution, Mr. 
 Bryan replied that slaves as well fought bravely in the ranks, 
 and that Congress had excluded free blacks from the militia.''^ 
 Along with the demonstration that negroes were debased and 
 degraded and could be abused by white men with impunity was 
 set forth the reasoning that the negroes did not need the elective 
 franchise as "they had no distinct interests to protect, and their 
 general interests would be protected by the general representa- 
 tion of the State, ' ' "* and that the protection given by the' state 
 amply repaid the light taxes laid upon them.^^ Referring to 
 the example of New York, Nathaniel IMacon, who was president 
 of the convention, argued that the situation in North Carolina 
 was much different because the number of free negroes was very 
 much greater. Perhaps the most solid logic employed by any- 
 one on the side against negro suffrage was contained in Mr. Mc- 
 Queen's interrogation: "Is there any gentleman on this floor, 
 who would be willing to see the right of suffrage extended to 
 free persons of colour, if they were likely to constitute a majority 
 of voters in the State ? ' ''"^ Probably not the most zealous fighter 
 for negro rights, any where in the country, would at that time 
 answered this question in the affirmative. Indeed, Mr. Jay, the 
 New York champion of the negro, based one of his strongest ap- 
 peals on the ground that colored voters were so few that they 
 would be of no real importance in elections."^ McQueen con- 
 
 '^Ibid. p. 71. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 68, Bryan: p. SO. Wilson. 
 
 <" Ibid., p. 62. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 356. McQueen. 
 
 '*lbid., p. 68, Bryan. 
 
 "ifttVf., p. 77. 
 
 ^i^Ante, p. 32. 
 
 [48] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 49 
 
 tinned: "If we would not be willing to invest them with the 
 right of suffrage, in case they were in a majority, it is not a 
 sound principle to extend it to them whilst they are in a minor- 
 ity. ' '^- The rising tide of pro-slavery feeling showed itself in 
 several expressions. One member declared that he would as 
 soon admit his own slave to equality as any free negro. ^^ The 
 condition of free negroes was justified as superior to the situa- 
 tion of ancient helots or European serfs.'^* The subjection of 
 black men was defended as necessary to cultivate marsh lands 
 and carry out internal improvements.'"' Mr. Wilson, of Per- 
 quimans, a county on the ocean, said, he had heard almost 
 everybody saying that slavery was a great evil. Now he be- 
 lieved that it was no such thing — he thought it great blessing in 
 the South. Our system of Agriculture could not be carried on 
 in the Southern States without it — we might as well attempt to 
 build a railroad to tlie moon, as to cultivate our swamp lands 
 without slaves.'^'' 
 
 The votes show, however, that there was a considerable minor- 
 ity friendly to the negro. Mr. Daniel's proposition of June 
 12th, for a property qualification was amended on the same day 
 by substituting a resolution proposed by ]\Ir. Wilson: "That free 
 negroes and mulattoes within four degrees, shall not in future 
 be allowed to vote for members of the Senate or House of Com- 
 mons. "■' This amendment w^as adopted by a vote of 61 to 58^^ 
 This resolution constituted the report of the committee of the 
 whole, and the motion next day to strike out was lost, the vote 
 standing 62 to 65. Then the report was adopted by a vote of 
 66 to 61.'" As one would expect, the heaviest vote in favor of 
 the negro was given by representatives from the anti-slavery re- 
 gion of the West. Of the 65 votes against striking out. 47 were 
 cast by the east and 18 by the west. Of the 62 in favor of 
 striking out the disfranchising provision, 40 were cast by the 
 
 '-N. C. Con. Report, 1835, p. 77. 
 
 ""lUd., p. 356, Carson. 
 
 '*It>ia.. p. 62, Bryan. 
 
 ^Ibid., p. 70, Macon. 
 
 ^ma., p. SO. 
 
 ''^ IMd., p. 71. 
 
 ""Ibid., p. 72. 
 
 ■"Ihid., p. 81. 
 
 [49] 
 
50 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 west and only 22 by the east.^" On the 6th of July, Judge Gas- 
 ton brought up the subject again, and proposed a clause which 
 would grant the voting privilege to colored men who "owned and 
 possessed property, real or personal or both, of the clear value of 
 five hundred dollars over and above all incumbrances, charges 
 and debts." Although it was probably true that, as a member 
 had said, even the requirement of $250 would either produce 
 frauds or amount to a nearly total disfranchisement, the major- 
 ity were unwilling to make the slightest concession. Judge Gas- 
 ton's proposition was defeated, 6-i to 55,®^ the substance of Mr. 
 Wilson's resolution became a part of the state constitution^- and 
 there was no more negro suffrage in North Carolina until the 
 days of Reconstruction. This provision went one generation 
 beyond that adopted by Tennessee, excluding all those descended 
 from negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive. 
 
 One would naturally suppose that the precedent of Tennessee 
 would have been cited in the convention in North Carolina,^^ but 
 no reference to this example is recorded in the debates. At least 
 Mr. McQueen, who did more of the speaking against negro suf- 
 frage than anyone else, was clearly unaware that either ]\[ary- 
 land or Tennessee had deprived the African of tlic elective fran- 
 chise.^* In other states there was similar ignorance of what 
 action had been taken elsewhere or in former times. When the 
 New York convention of 1821 was in session, the veto of 1785 
 was apparently forgotten, for it was never mentioned. In the 
 Pennsylvania convention of 1837-1838, which will be next dis- 
 cussed, several members referred to the debates of the New 
 York convention and to the action of other states but no one 
 spoke of the disfranchisement of colored men in North Carolina 
 and toward the end of the session, one member asserted that 
 negroes could still vote in that state. ^^ 
 
 "•Bassett, Am. Hist, .'\ssoc. Report., 1895, p. 280; or Johns Hopkins' Histor- 
 ical Studies, vol. XVII., 358. 
 
 »i3V. C. Con. Report., 1835, p. 357. 
 
 "Poore, II., 1411. 
 
 "^ " This restriction no doubt liad a reflex influence on North Carolina." 
 Weeks, Pol. Sic. Qunr., TX., 674. 
 
 84 TV. V. Con. Reports, 1835, p. 70. 
 
 '^^Penn. Con. Reports, 1837-38, X., 355, Biddle. 
 
 [50] 
 
' olbrich— negro suffrage 51 
 
 Pennsylvania, 1837--38 
 
 In Pennsylvania, in 1837, there were many negro voters. It 
 was roughly estimated by a member of the convention that some 
 hundreds of colored men voted in York county, and some thirty 
 or forty in Bucks.^^ Another member complained that the elec- 
 tion in Bucks county that year had been influenced by the negroes 
 and that the year before they had come within twelve votes of 
 electing their candidate for Congress.*^" Allegheny, Dauphin, 
 Cumberland, Juniata, Westmoreland and "many other counties" 
 were also mentioned as places where negroes voted.^^ On the 
 other hand, there were several thousand free negroes of full age 
 in Philadelphia,-^ and they were all kept away from the polls by 
 construing the constitution that the right to vote could not be 
 exercised without a previous assessment.*"^ They could not ap- 
 pear at the voting places with safety in the county of Philadel- 
 phia, and to bring them there "would endanger the peace and 
 happiness of the whole black population." In many places 
 throughout the state, "public sentiment rising above all law 
 and the constitution, prevented them from coming to the 
 polls. ' '^1 Whether they were legally entitled to the elective fran- 
 chise under the constitution of 1790 was an unsettled question,^- 
 about which, during the agitation which accompanied the session 
 of the convention, "judges, lawyers, and statesmen, as well as 
 citizens at large," differed "in diametrical opposition. "^^ Elec- 
 tion officers were doubtful as to whom they should permit to 
 vote.^* Before the meeting of the convention, little was thought 
 about the subject. Two members, both from Philadelphia, had 
 not known that any negroes had ever voted in any county in the- 
 state. ^'' In North Carolina, the law which provided for the^ 
 
 "'Ibid., III., 90. Brown. 
 
 '■'Ibid., v., 414, Sterigere. 
 
 ^Ibid., IX., 3S0, M'Cahen. 
 
 *'Jlbid., I., .^41, M'Dowell. 
 
 "^Ibid., I., pp. 82, 83, Martin. 
 
 ">' Ibid., I., p. 478. Martin. 
 
 "■Ibid., III., p. 86, Woodward. 
 
 o^Jbid., X., 97, Hopkinson. 
 
 **Ibid., IX., 383. 
 
 »' Ibid., I.. 477. Martin : TIT.. 00. Brown. 
 
 [51] 
 
52 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 meeting of the convention of 1835 empowered it to disfranchise 
 colored voters, but in Pennsylvania little had been previously 
 thought or spoken of negro suffrage.'"^ It was not one of the 
 questions that led to the calling of the convention, it had prob- 
 ably not been discussed in any public meetings or j^roceedings 
 that preceded the meeting of that body, and it had been agitated 
 in hardly more than a single county at the time the delegates 
 were elected.®' 
 
 The first suffrage article reported to the convention on May 
 17, 1837, contained no color distinction. The convention met 
 May 2.-'^ But on the 19th of June, Mr. Sterigere proposed a 
 substitute containing the word "white"-'® which was discussed 
 on that day and on the 21st and 23rd.^"° The debate on this 
 question and on printing a memorial protesting against dis- 
 franchisement, which was sent to the convention by eighty ne- 
 groes of Pittsburg, aroused' public interest, newspapers discussed 
 the question and popular excitement spread over the whole 
 state.^ The convention adjourned from July 14 until October 
 17.- During this period much opposition to negro suffrage was 
 manifested. Mr. Sterigere said: "After adjournment in July, 
 I passed through near half the counties in the State, and found 
 opposition to negro suffrage was almost unanimous. Persons o± 
 all parties expressed the strongest objection to any political 
 association with this class of our population."^ Mr. McCahen 
 expressed the opinion that the people would not ratify the con- 
 stitution unless colored men were expressly disfranchised.* Yet 
 there was a minority on the side of the negroes. In some coun- 
 ties attempts were made to bring them to the polls, and the 
 clash of opposing sentiments and opinions threatened serious 
 difficulties."' When the convention met again, scores of petitions 
 
 ^"IbM., X., 96, Hopkinson. 
 
 «'ibld., IX., p. 334, Earle. 
 
 "s/bw., I., p. 233. 
 
 "« Ihiit., I., p. 472. 
 
 "" Ihid.. I., pp. 470-481, 540, .541, 561 ; III., pp. 82-91. 
 
 ' Tbid, v., 414, 416, IX., 357, 
 
 'Ibid., III., 78U. 
 
 -'Jbid., IX.. 357. 
 
 < Ibid., IX., p. 380. 
 
 5 Ibid , X.. p. 'Mi 
 
 [52] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 53 
 
 and memorials, praying for disfranchisement or for impartial 
 suffrage, were sent in from all parts of the state.'' From Bucks 
 county were sent twenty-six memorials and petitions asking that 
 negroes be disfranchised and seven praying that they be per- 
 mitted to vote ; from Montgomery county, eighteen and two ; 
 and from Philadelphia county, fourteen and six, one of the 
 latter having been sent ostensibly by colored people. One peti- 
 tion from Schuylkill, two from Lycoming, five from Westmore- 
 land, one from Lancaster and two from York were opposed to 
 negro suffrage : in favor of it were, one from Luzerne, coming 
 from colored people, four from Lancaster, two from IMifflin, one 
 each from Dauphin, Susquehanna, Deleware, and Washington, 
 and fifteen from Chester. Most of the petitions, therefore, came 
 from the eastern part of the state. Bucks, Montgomery, Phila- 
 delphia and Westmoreland, as far as the petitions are an indica- 
 tion, were the chief centers of opposition to negro suffrage, while 
 all fifteen of the petitions from Chester were in favor of it. 
 ^Meanwhile the question had been taken to the courts. Appar- 
 ently, the lower tribunals had considered a few cases before the 
 convention met, and when agitation was going on during the 
 latter part of 1837, the friends of the negroes brought a number 
 of suits to test the colored man's right to vote. In most of these 
 cases it was decided that no such right existed.'^ In June, an 
 appeal was taken to the supreme court of the state, and the 
 case was argued before it in July;^ but the decision, which was 
 adverse to the negroes, was not handed down until after the 
 convention had adjourned.^ 
 
 Many of the arguments advanced in the Pennsylvania con- 
 vention debates had been used before in the New York conven- 
 tion of 1821 and during the JMassachusetts discussions of 1778. 
 
 « Ibid., v.. pp. 414. 419, 426. 44.S ; VI., pp. 46. 102, 298, .370, .371 ; VII., pp. S, 
 117, 272. 295, .357, 384; VIIT., pp. 91, 92, 113, 117. 161. 162. 103, 267: IX.^ 
 pp. 41. 83. 114, 15.^, 219, 224, 225. 293, 294, 3.39: X.. pp. 29. 193; XI.. p. 3. 
 
 'Tbia., III., p. 86; V. p. 423; IX., p. 353. 
 
 » IMd., III., p. 87. 
 
 ^ Hohhs et al., r. Fogrj : 6 WnH.'i. p. 553, or 55 Penu. p. 214. I cannot 
 fix the date when the decision was made public, exactly ; but language used in 
 the conventicn on .Tan. 18. 1838, (TX.. 375t and later. (X; 47, 97) shows that 
 the case was not yet decided ; and expressions used by Chief-Gibson shows that 
 he was writing after the adoption by the convention of the new suffrage clause. 
 6 Watts, p. 5oO. 
 
 [53] 
 
54 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 Some were new, and some of the old arguments were viewed 
 from new standpoints and developed by new illustrations. 
 
 Several members objected to the use of the word ''white" as 
 too indefinite. ^° This was the ground on which Gallatin was 
 thought to have based his objections in 1790, but, said Mr. 
 McCahen, there could no longer be any doubt as to the meaning 
 of the word.^^ It was used in seventeen or eighteen state consti- 
 tutions and in several laws of Congress, so that its significance 
 had been settled.^- Chief-Justice Gibson, however, thought that, 
 for deciding cases of disputed color, it would have been better 
 to fix a definite rule, such as forbiding mulattoes to the fourth 
 generation to exercise the elective franchise.^^ 
 
 The opponents of negro suffrage urged that negroes were not 
 fit to be voters, trying to make them equal to whites was as 
 useless as were the attempts in early days to civilize the Indians, 
 whose college education had aided them only ''to beg from 
 door to door, and ask for whiskey in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. ' ' 
 An exceptional Indian or African, aided by the novelty of 
 his situation, might acquire property and become a person of 
 some consequence ; but most of the negroes in Pennsylvania 
 were still ignorant and degraded, despite great efforts that had 
 been put forth to improve their condition.^* It was true that 
 they were in poverty and had had little time' to rise in 
 the social scale ; but, said Mr. Sterigere : ' ' You could not select 
 40,000 white people from the lawest ranks of society, and of 
 the most worthless character who would not in the course of 
 sixty years produce thousands of instances of successful industrv% 
 enterprise and intellectual powers. This comparison and view 
 alone must satisfy everyone of the natural inferiority of the 
 negro or Ethopian race."^^ Nine-tenths of them were degraded 
 and debased, and, though only a few already voted, there were 
 five thousand in the city of Philadelphia and ten thousand else- 
 where, who, if definitely assured that they had a right to vote. 
 
 i»Pff. Von. Report, 1837-8.. p. 471, Merril ; IX.. HTo. Reigart : X., pp. 6. 7. 
 
 Merril and Forward, 182. Konigmacher. 
 "ififd.. III.. 87. 
 
 "Ihia., I., p. 472; III., p. 89. 
 
 " Hobba et al v. Fogg, op. cit. 
 
 ^*Pa. Con. Report, III., p. 83. 
 "/6i(f., X., p. 86. 
 
 [54] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 55 
 
 would ''rush to the polls in senseless and unmeaning triumph," 
 the colored boot-blacks and chimney-sweeps would jostle and 
 elbow respectable citizens, and would be able to control elections 
 and distribute offices.^" To grant negroes the elective franchise 
 would encourage them to come into Pennsylvania from the 
 South." This fear led to the adoption, by 56 to 50, of a resolu- 
 tion that a committee be appointed to inquire into the expediency 
 of prohibiting future immigration into the state of free persons 
 of color and fugitive slaves.^^ Neighboring free states restricted 
 the migration of free blacks into their territory ; the slave states 
 were trying to drive them out of theirs. As a result, especially 
 if negroes were granted the right to vote, Pennsylvania would 
 be "inundated with the black population," whose habits were 
 ''more dissipated than those of any other portion of our citi- 
 zens." "Tens and hundreds of thousands of this base and 
 degraded caste" would be "vomited upon us," and would 
 congregate in various places and control local elections.^^ ]Mr. 
 Hopkinson said: "We have here a colored population of fifty 
 or sixty thousand rapidly increasing. We have in our neigh- 
 borhood, sister states overflowing with this population, who 
 may pour them in upon us in countless numbers, and who are 
 now doing so to an alarming extent without the encouragement 
 now proposed to be given to them."-" 
 
 If such great numbers of colored men were permitted to vote, 
 they would be sure to elect black office-holders. Compromises 
 in closely fought elections would enable them to become judges 
 and legislators. No one could desire to see such a result. It 
 would be unbearable to sit in a legislature even with a negro 
 who was worth a hundred thousand dollars. Such a representa- 
 tive would surely be turned out of doors, for no one would 
 legislate in company with men "whom you will not receive 
 at your tables or in your houses as friends and acquaintances." 
 It would not do to make voters of men who might be sold into 
 slavery if they crossed the line into another state. It was 
 
 ''Hid., I., p. .541. McDowell; III., p. 8.3. Martin; IX., p. .36.5, Sterigere ; IX. 
 p. 383, M'Cahen. 
 
 ^T ma., I., p. 478. Martin . 
 
 "T&id., v., pp. 44.3, 4,57. 
 
 '" IWd., v., pp. 45.3, 455, Mann, Brown; IX., 365, Sterigere. 
 
 '"/ftitf., X., 94. 
 
 [55] 
 
56 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 not to be thought of that it should be made possible for a 
 southern gentleman to meet in the halls of Congress, taking 
 part in national councils, the same slaves whom, a few years 
 before, he had manumitted and sent to Pennsylvania.'-^ Indeed 
 a fugitive slave could be elected to the legislature, if the color 
 distinction were omitted ; and what a spectacle it would be if 
 his old master should come and drag him out of his seat and 
 send him home ! To allow negroes to vote and hold office would 
 be "amalgamation to the fullest extent."-- This verbal thun- 
 der, which had been used in North Carolina,-' was employed in 
 about thirty five of the petitions and memorials that were 
 sent to the convention.-* A member inquired what specific 
 object was feared under the name "amalgamation".-^ But 
 what meaning was attached to the term is fairly clear from 
 the language of the petitions: all thirty-five of them asked, 
 substantially, "that measures may be taken to prevent all amal- 
 gamation between the white and colored population in regard 
 to the government of our state. ' ' A more serious argument was 
 made to the effect that, unless white people were willing to have 
 their brothers and sisters and sons and daughters intermarry 
 with negroes, it was a mere cheat to grant black men the elec- 
 tive franchise.-^ Political equality would be impossible without 
 social equality: "For suffrage is only the expression of the 
 opinions which are perpetually maturing under the influence 
 of social intercourse and equality."-' 
 
 The feelings of white people, however, made any real equality 
 permanently unattainable. "There alwaj^s must be an inequal- 
 ity," said Mr. Martin, "because negroes are naturally inca- 
 pable." -^ God and nature had made a distinction between the 
 races.-^ It was not their condition but their nature that had 
 
 2' Ibid., I., pp. 477, 478, Martin ; III.. 90. Brown : IX., p. 328, Sturdevant, 
 p. 366, Sterls-ere. p. '682, M'Cahen : X., 81, Payne, 95, Hopkinson. 
 
 --Ihid., v., p. 418, Shellito; IX., p. .321, Martin. 
 
 ■-^Ante., pp. .^".7. 58. 
 
 ^*Pa. Con. Report. 1837-8.. V.. 443; VII., pp. 3, 272, 295, 357, 384; VIII., 
 pp. 92, US, 161, 267; IX., pp. 83, 114, 2.^2, 293, 294, 339; X., pp. 29, 113. 
 
 ^Ihid., VIII., p. 117. 
 
 ^ Ibid., v., 418, Shellito; IX., p. 322, Martin. 
 
 " IMa., X., pp. 2'i2-25, Woodward. 
 
 -»rbid., III., 83. 
 
 ^ima.. III., p. 90, Brown. 
 
 [56] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 57 
 
 made the distinction l)etween the races."" It was a matter for 
 consideration "'whether negroes are a different species from the 
 white man, and only a link in the chain of being. "^^ One mem- 
 l)er declared that "he would maintain on that floor and in the 
 world to come, if he was permitted, that the negroes are a 
 degraded race, and the whites entitled to superiority over 
 them.""- Another quoted the slave-holder's favorite text, the 
 story of Noah's curse of Canaan, declared that the negroes were 
 a race for whom the Lord had provided no redemption, and 
 asserted that "the Supreme Being who has created us all had 
 made some bond and some free men, and he had declared that 
 some should be the servant of the servants to the end of time."^^ 
 Negroes themselves did not desire to vote, for they knew 
 that the prejudices of white people were such that the elective 
 franchise would not benefit the blacks. The attempt to go to 
 the polls would be attended with bloodshed and even loss of 
 life.^* A race war would be inevitable.'"' "They could not 
 be placed on an equality in political and social rights, with the 
 white citizens. No white citizen would permit a negro to 
 educate his children, or to marry into his family. "^^ In Phila- 
 delphia, where there were several thousand of them," said Mr. 
 Brown, "the signal for them to attend and give their votes 
 would be the signal for their destruction. ... In twenty- 
 four hours . . . not a negro house in the city or county 
 would be left standing. ... It was the duty of legislators 
 to consult the public feeling and not do violence to it by any of 
 their acts. ' ' "' "Sir. Sturdevant said : ' ' Injury, annihilation to 
 the blacks would be the result of making him the equal at the 
 ballot-box with the white, but you can never force the citizens of 
 this commonwealth to believe or practice it."^^ Mr. Sterigere 
 quoted the words of Jefferson : ' ' Deep rooted prejudices enter- 
 
 ^Ibia., X.. p. 85. sterigere. 
 ^^Ibia., IX. p. S64. 
 ^Ibid., IX.. p. 8:;5, Sturdevant. 
 ^Ibid., IX., pp. 386. .387. M'Cahen. 
 ^Ihid., IX., p. :^80, M'Cahen. 
 '^Ibid., IX., p. 321. Martin. 
 ^'Ibia., v., 414, M'Cahen. 
 ^'' Ibid., IX., 393. 
 ^Ibid., ix'., p. 328. 
 
 [57] 
 
58 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 tallied by the whites, ten thousand recollections by the blacks of 
 injuries they have sustained; the real distinctions which nature 
 hath made ; and many other circumstances will divide us into 
 parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end 
 but in the extermination of one or the other race ! ' '^^ It would, 
 therefore, be cruel and wrong to "excite hopes and hold out the 
 delusive shadows of privileges to black men which must end in 
 disappointment. ' '*° It were far better that, as in the South, they 
 should be taught from cradle to grave that they were inferior to 
 the white man and were trained not to feel their degradation, 
 than that they should be deluded by an empty, formal equality 
 which would "Keep the word of promise to the ear 
 And break it to the hope.' "*^ 
 
 The men who applied the Declaration of Independence to the 
 negroes were merely declaiming, and did not themselves really 
 wish to make negroes equal with white men.*- The philan- 
 thropic sentiment about men of color was the result of misguid- 
 ed zeal. Men of wealth who contributed to the anti-slavery cause 
 might better lend a helping hand to thousands of white people 
 who were actuated by a laudable ambition never felt by 
 negroes.^^ "The state of the white population is growing worse. 
 We are fast treading on the heels of Europe." The people of 
 Pennsylvania had nothing to do with bringing negroes from 
 Africa and were clear of sin. No one imagined that the blacks 
 were not better situated than in their aboriginal home. This 
 agitation against slavery originated in England among philan- 
 thropists who overlooked the squalor of the white people around 
 them and wasted their funds and their sentiment on distant 
 Africans. "A great man who had nothing to do but to hunt 
 out something to build a name upon set it on foot. A species 
 of fanaticism sometimes takes possession of good men, and they 
 are carried away by a belief, that a great deal more is yet to 
 be done than ever has been done."^* The only object in trying 
 
 "/Did., X.. p. 85. 
 
 *'>Il)ia., I., 477, Martin. 
 
 "Ibia., III.. 91, Brown. 
 
 "Ibid., I., p. 477; IX., p. M22, Martin. 
 
 "/Mtf., IX., p. 322, Martin. 
 
 «/6itf.. III., p. 84, Martin. 
 
 [58] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 59 
 
 to secure negro suffrage was to degrade white laborers.^' "The 
 elevation of the black man is the degradation of the white 
 man. ' '" 
 
 The opponents of color discrimination of course argued that 
 taxation without representation was unjust. There v.^ere rich 
 colored men in Bucks county, one worth nearly a hundred 
 thousand: the elective franchise ought not to be withheld from 
 one who had so deep a stake in society.^' Van Buren's speech 
 in the New York convention of 1821 was quoted/^ and other 
 references were made to the well-worn phrase ;'*''' but the argu- 
 ment was not elaborated. It was remembered that negroes had 
 fought bravely in the Revolution,"" and extracts were read from 
 General Jackson's proclamations at the time of the battle of 
 New Orleans, one of which called on negroes to fight "as sons 
 of freedom," the other of which praised their. valorous qualities, 
 and neither of which, said the speaker, was a negro memorial. ^^ 
 Disfranchisement of the blacks would be irreconcilable with the 
 Declaration of Independence.^- "In the day of retribution 
 there will be no inquiries made as to whetlier v.'e had white 
 or black skins, so that we have clear hearts; therefore let us 
 do justice to all, and oppress none," said Mr. Earle, and he 
 quoted the golden rule and the famous verse from Acts which 
 declares that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men 
 for to dwell on all the face of the earth. "^^ Where would negroes 
 obtain justice if not in Pennsylvania? Indeed there might 
 be some violence done them if they attempted to vote; "but 
 if injustice will be done, let it be done against the law, and 
 not with the law."" Rights cannot be surrendered merely to 
 avoid provoking the ire of a mob.^^ Even in the South, white 
 and black sit at the same communion table, because it is real- 
 
 " Ibid., I.. 477., Martin. 
 
 *'ima., IX.. 321. Martin. 
 
 *'' ima., T.. p. 57G, Jenks 
 
 *'Ibia., IX.. 376, Reigart. 
 
 *" lOia., IX., p. 322. Dickey: X., p. 118, .Tenks. 
 
 '^ Ibid., X., p. 92, Forward. 
 
 "/6ttf., X.. p. 40, Darlington. 
 
 '■^Ibid., IX., p. 3ri5, Earle, p. 355, Biddle. 
 
 " Ibid., IX.. p. 336 ; X., 56, Darlington. 
 
 "Ibid., IX., p. 333, McClay. 
 
 ^Jbid., X., p. 6-7, Merril. 
 
 [59] 
 
60 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 ized that all are equal in the Creator's sight.'" This doctrine 
 that black men were incapable of self government was a danger- 
 ous one to put forth in this country for its application might 
 be extended to some white men.'"'' There could be political 
 equality without social equality. Giving blacks tlie elective fran- 
 chise would make them contented and perhaps useful as citi- 
 zens, but depriving them of it would cause discontent and hatred 
 to prevail among them.'** The idea that they were naturally 
 inferior was mistaken. Mr. Earle referred to Alexander II. 
 Everett, a democratic candidate for Congress at the late elections 
 in Massachusetts who proved from Herodotus that the ancient 
 Egyptians, the fathers of the sciences and arts, were men of 
 black skins, crisped hair, and Ethopian extraction, and who 
 called the prevailing motion that these characteristics were signs 
 of inferiority an absurd and barbarous prejudice which the 
 light of knowledge would eventually dissipate.'^ He also re- 
 ferred to Daniel O'Connell who said that "the worst of all 
 aristocracies is that which prevails in America — an aristocracy 
 which had been aptly denominated that of the human skin.""^ 
 This sentiment, in the very spirit of Charles Sumner, when thirty 
 years later he thundered his denunciation of the aristocracy of 
 color, was incorporated in over a score of petitions against dis- 
 franchisement, which prayed "that no change in the existing 
 constitution may be made having a tendency to create distinc- 
 tions in the rights and privileges of citizens of this commonwealth 
 founded merely upon their complexion."*'^ 
 
 The argument that the right of suffrage would induce free 
 negroes to come into the state was met by denial."- They did 
 not increase as fast as whites and their death rate was higher. 
 They might be prevented from immigrating too rapidly by re- 
 quiring from three to seven years residence before they could 
 vote.®^ Only one member referred to the oppressive restrictions 
 
 '^ Ibia., X.. p. 12, MeiTil. 
 
 '•>'• Ibid., X., p. IH. 
 
 '"iOfri., X., p. 10. Forward. 
 
 "'> Ibid., IX.. p. 844. 
 
 '^lbi(t., IX.. p. 34f». 
 
 "7bz(7., VII., p. 29.5; VIII., pp. 11-3, 117, 161, 193; IX., pp. 41, 114, 115, 
 
 T.'jS, 293, 339; XI., p. 3. 
 
 ^ Ibid., X., p. (56. Dickey. 
 
 *^Thi(t., X.. p. n. Forward. 
 
 [60] 
 
OLBlilCII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 61 
 
 ill other states as an argument for giving the blacks an asylum 
 in Pennsylvania. He thought it "the hardest thing in the world 
 to deny" them '"a resting place for the soles of their feet." 
 But even he said: "If there is any prospect that the chains 
 of the slave will be riveted faster upon him, in consequence of 
 the efforts which are made for his liberation, then it is obvious 
 that we need entertain no great fear that the State of Pennsj'l- 
 vania will be inundated — with the black population from other 
 States. "'^^ Only one member was bold enough or inclined to 
 ask why people should not be permitted to send a negro to 
 the legislature if they chose."'' This evidence, if it were needed, 
 could be adduced to show the existence of a deep-seated prejudice 
 against the negroes. Indeed one of their friends admitted that 
 they were not a desirable class of population, but argued that, 
 having been brought from Africa through violence and fraud, 
 they had peculiar claims to being treated with justice and hu- 
 manity.®'' Members expressed the hope and belief that prejudice 
 against the negro, which it was hinted, did not prevail in Euro- 
 pean countries,"" had been mitigated and would die away in 
 America f^ but its existence at the time was admitted as a 
 fact. Mr. Maclay declared that all the arguments against the 
 iiegro could be summed up by an old rhyme: 
 
 " I do not like you. Doctor Fell ! 
 The reason why I cannot tell : 
 But this I do know passing well — 
 I do not like you, Doctor Fell."'''' 
 
 On the side of disfranchisement, it was argued that it was no 
 injustice to deny black men the suffrage as long as women did 
 not vote;''"' and that if male negroes were admitted, by the 
 same reasoning, female negroes ought to be admitted to the 
 elective franchise."^ It was urged that negroes Avere neither 
 
 " IbM., v., pp. 4r)(;. 457, Earle. 
 
 "5 /birf., X., p. 11. Forward. 
 
 "' Ibid., IX.. p. y,y.2, Maclay. 
 
 «" Ibia., X., p. 12, Forward. 
 
 "^Ibid., IX., pp. 851, 352, Meredith, p. 354. Biddle. 
 
 ^^Ibid., IX., p. 258. 
 
 '"Ibid., IX.. p. :^79, M'Cahen . 
 
 ■oibid., v., p. 41H, M'Cahen. 
 
 [61] 
 
62 BUJ.LET1N OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 freemen nor citizens within the meaning of the Constitution. 
 and really had no right to vote."- In the debate on printing 
 a negro memorial, Mr. Sterigere said they were not citizens and 
 had no more ri^'nt to '■■■■ v-^'^^-a :'>]■ \^^ <■•• ^..-i^ ol" the monarchs 
 of England and France." The constitution and the laws recog- 
 nized in them a distinct people. They were excluded from the 
 militia, from the polls, from the jury box, and from office. A 
 man might be a freeman and yet not a citizen ; negroes could 
 exercise none of the rights of citizenship."* Only white persons 
 could be naturalized under the federal laws. The supreme 
 courts of Connecticut and Kentucky had decided that negroes 
 were not citizens, and Judge Kent had said : ' ' They are 
 essentially a degraded caste, of inferior rank and condition in 
 society. "^^ The disabilities laid on them in early days showed 
 that they were not included by the framers of the state constitu- 
 tion among those "born equally free and independent." They 
 could be among those "entitled to all privileges and immunities 
 of the citizens in the several states" unless it should be assumed 
 that this provision of the federal constitution was being system- 
 atically violated. The fact that all the Southern states forbade 
 free negroes to carry tirearms proved that they are not a part 
 of "the people", whose right to keep and bear arms was never 
 to be denied."*' 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Maelay declared that a provision for 
 excluding free negroes from the state would violate the second 
 section of the fourth article of the United States constitution; 
 that there was no evidence that the framers of the Pennsylvania 
 constitution of 1790 meant white freemen when they used the 
 word "freemen", and that the preamble of the law passed in 
 1780 to provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves showed 
 that negroes were made freemen and therefore citizens.'^" Others 
 tried to justify negro suffrage by the theory of social compact. 
 "By suffrage," said Mr. Rogers, "I apprehend is meant, in 
 its most enlarged sense, that expression of will by which man 
 
 ^Ibia., v.. p. 417. Cummins!. 
 
 ^"■IWa., IX.. p. 221. 
 
 ""^IMd., v., p. 422. 
 
 ■"■Ibid., IX.. pp. S60-364. Sterigere. 
 
 ■"'Ihid., IX., pp. .S25, 326, Sturdevant. 
 
 ^ Ibid., v., pp. 42], 451. 
 
 [62] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 63 
 
 signilics his disposition to enter into the social compact — and 
 to institute government. It is by that also he manifests his assent 
 or dissent to the measures of that government. It is evidently, 
 then, a natural and inherent right, and not at any time surren- 
 dered ; for, by the exercise of it alone, can man pass from a state 
 of nature into the social compact. "^^ Another opinion is record- 
 ed: "If society, when forming itself into the social state, had 
 conferred upon any body of men a right, they specified the 
 grounds upon which they hold it. If, then, under the social 
 compact, originally adopted, men had become members of that 
 society for life, and had brought up their children under it, he 
 held it to be politically impossible for that social body, in or 
 out of the convention, to disfranchise those men.""^ Another, 
 though friendly to the negroes, dissented from this Rousseauism : 
 • ' The question cannot be placed on the ground of natural rights. 
 We have no natural rights. We are making a rule of govern- 
 ment, and a government founded on the laws of nature, 
 would be a return to savage life, where every man could 
 do as he pleased making the law for himself."*" One of 
 the opponents of negro suffrage put a second edge on 
 the principle of the consent of the governed: "The negroes 
 never assented, and their presence here, since it was pro- 
 cured by fraud and force, could not be construed into 
 an adoption of the country, or an acquiescence in its form of 
 government. They were brought here to be slaves, and not 
 freemen; and they were slaves and not freemen when the prin- 
 ciples of government were agreed on, and when its foundations 
 were laid." Having never "consented" to the government or 
 been admitted into the social compact, the.y w^re in the position 
 of non-naturalized foreigners.^^ It was not explained whose 
 subjects they were. In this view, free colored people were native 
 aliens, men without a country. A similar idea runs through 
 Chief-Justice Gibson's opinion. He describes the black laws of 
 the 18th century and asks: "If freemen, in a political sense, 
 were subject of these cruel and degrading oppressions, what must 
 
 -■*IMd., I., p. 474. 
 
 "<» IMa., X., p. 5o, Scott; X., p. 68, Chaimcy. 
 
 ^Ibia., X., p. 5, Merril. 
 
 ^^Ihid., X., pp. 19, 20, Woodward. 
 
 [63] 
 
64 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 have been the lot of their brethren in bondage ? ' ', and uses these 
 laws as evidence, "that no colored race was party to our social 
 compact." The word "freedom" signifies more than exemption 
 from involuntary service. "The freedom of a municipal corpora- 
 tion, or body politic, implies fellowship and participation of 
 corporate rights; But an inhabitant of an incorporated place 
 who is neither servant nor slave, though bound by its laws may 
 be no freeman in respect of its government." "The word 
 freeman was applied in a peculiar sense to the political compact 
 of our ancestors, resting like a corporation on a charter from 
 the crown. "^- 
 
 The most important phase of these debates is still to be 
 reviewed. Much fear was expressed that the discussion of the 
 question of negro suffrage would cause great excitement and 
 endanger the safety of the union. Many members desired to 
 leave the question for the supreme court to decide and wished to 
 dispense with the reading or printing of memorials in favor of 
 the colored people.*" Discussion of it, said Mr. Agnew, would 
 bring up the whole matter of slavery concerning which ' ' excite- 
 ment of a frightful kind prevails throughout many of the states." 
 Negro suffrage "was a delicate question and should be spoken 
 of with delicacy. We should agitate it as little as possible."^* 
 Charges were made that the abolitionists were responsible for 
 pressing the right of negroes to vote among the people, in the 
 convention and in the courts of justice, and that the agitation 
 of this question was an abolitionist scheme to bring about a 
 collision between the North and the South. During the early 
 part of the discussion, in June 1837, a member who opposed the 
 color discrimination said it might if adopted endanger the 
 amended constitution before the people because abolitionists 
 would vote against it.''^ A member on the other side was astound- 
 ed: "If that be their object the sooner the people of Pennsyl- 
 vania know it the better. He had thought it was their rights 
 as human beings the abolitionists had been endeavoring to estab- 
 
 »- Hohhs et al V. Fogg, p. 6. Watts, p. 553 . 
 
 *^ IMd., TIL, p. 87, Darlington, p. 91, Brown; V.. pp.. 415. 419: IX.. pp. 220- 
 282. 
 
 '^Ibid., IX., 367. 
 
 ^"^ Ibid., v., p. 423: Cummins, IX., pp 321, 322. Martin, p. 327, Sturdevant: 
 X., p. 21, Woodward. 
 
 [64] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 65 
 
 lish, not their rights to a political equality."**^ To permit negroes 
 to vote, to make it possible that a black should be sent to Con- 
 gress, would be a violation of covenant engagements with the 
 South, an otfence and a gross insult to the slave states, who 
 would never have joined the Union had they anticipated that 
 free states would make voters of their fugitive slaves.*" 
 
 In reply, Mr. Earle said that those who argued that granting 
 negroes the elective franchise would cause the dissolution of 
 the Union were "paying but a poor compliment to the nullifiers 
 of the South, the great sticklers for the right of each state to 
 regulate its own concerns. ' '** Several members who denied that 
 they were abolitionists, complained bitterly that the Southern 
 States had suppressed the right of petition in Congress and 
 were trying to put dow^n free discussion of the slavery question 
 in the North. "^^ "When the sacred rights of petition, and the 
 freedom of discussion and the liberty of the press are decried 
 by the free representatives of the citizens of free states," said 
 Mr. Dickey, "then it is indeed time to calculate the value of 
 the Union." One member declared that arguments against 
 negro suffrage were arguments for slavery."*^ Another would 
 refuse to appease the wrath of the South by doing injustice to 
 a part of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, and expressed indigna- 
 tion at the opinions of Governor jMcDuffy of South Carolina, 
 that "slavery is a necessary ingredient of an unmixed republic," 
 and the conclusions of a writer in the Charleston Mercury who 
 "trusted he had proved that slavery was approved by God and 
 the patriarchs, and Christ and the Apostles, and that to say 
 it was sinful to hold slaves was impious ' ', and at the attempt of 
 Southern States to secure penal legislation against those who in 
 the North, declared their belief "that slavery is a sin in the 
 sight of God and man. ' '^^ The speech of Mr. Reigart of Lancas- 
 ter county, on January 18, 1838, deserves special attention. He 
 denied that he was an abolitionist or that he was "among those 
 
 ^"lUd., III., p. 89, Brown. 
 
 ^■'ima.. v.. p. 418, Shellito; IX., p. -367. Storigere, p. 35-3, Meredith; X.. p. 
 22, Woodward. 
 ^ Ibid., X., p. ;;!). 
 
 '^ Ibid., X., pp. 41. 42. Darlington. 
 ™7birf., X., p. 66. Decker, p. 121, Purviance. 
 *^Jbld., IX., p. 353, Meredith. 
 
 [65] 
 
66 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 who are disposed to minister to the morbid sensibilities of the 
 southern politicians." He denounced the aggressiveness of the 
 slave power. He contrasted the care taken to preserve neutrality 
 on the Canadian border with the systematic violation of neutrali- 
 ty in Texas. He referred to the right of petition, which had 
 been overthrown with the aid' of Northern votes: "These rec- 
 reant degenerate sons of patriotic sires . . . lent themselves^ 
 passive instruments, to the arrogant, imprudent, reckless pre- 
 tensions of the hot bloods of the South, for the purpose of 
 overthrowing this great principle of liberty." The Southern 
 states were memoralizing Northern legislatures to prevent their 
 citizens from writing, printing, nay almost from thinking, on 
 the subject of domestic slavery." "These aggressions men are 
 called upon not only to permit but to applaud. We are told 
 that southern gentlemen are high-bom, high-minded, honorable 
 and just. . . . The North has suffered much and great in- 
 justice from the South, and the time has come when northern 
 men should speak plainly 'without reservation, equivocation 
 or mental reservation.' " His attitude was similar to that 
 of Mr. Jay in the New York Convention of 1821,^- and his argu- 
 ment also was similar. "My principal objection . . . is that 
 it will be viewed in the South as the triumph of Southern 
 principles in a Northern State. ' ' In conclusion he said : ' ' The 
 vote we are about to give will excite great surprise every- 
 where. In the South, it will be celebrated almost with bonfire, 
 illumination, feasting, and every demonstration of joy. In it 
 they will see the triumph of Southern principles in good old 
 staid Pennsylvania; and we shall be obliged to witness the 
 galling spectacle of the triumph of the dark spirit of slavery 
 in our native state. "^^ 
 
 The vote, January 20, on Mr. Martin's motion to insert the 
 word "white" resulted, yeas 77, nays 45.^* Not all of the 
 minority were in favor of permitting negroes to vote on an 
 equality with whites. There were several members who real- 
 ized the incapacity of the negroes and the prejudice against them, 
 who were of liberal sentiments, and who wished to make pro- 
 
 ^Ante, pp. 31-32. 
 o^lWa., IX., pp. 370-377. 
 
 •>* ima., X., p. io«. 
 
 [66] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 67 
 
 vision that negroes might vole under certain restrictions, or at 
 a future time, when negroes should have made greater progress 
 and the feeling of white people toward them should have become 
 more favorable."^ Accordingly, as soon as the disfranchising 
 clause was carried, j\Ir. Scott, of Philadelphia, moved to add a 
 proviso that, at any time after 1860, the legislature might ex- 
 tend the right of suffrage to colored persons on whatever condi- 
 tions should seem expedient; but this motion was defeated by a 
 vote of 73 to 36.^'* On January 22, Mr. Dunlop offered an 
 amendment providing that negroes, who had resided three years 
 in the State and owned property of the value of $200 above 
 all incumbrances, should have a right to vote, and that those 
 not qualified to vote under this provision should be exempt from 
 taxation.-'" This amendment was defended on the principle of 
 "taxation and representation,"'*^ and the speeches and vote of 
 ]\Iartin Van Buren in the New York convention of 1821 were 
 cited in its favor. "The vote of Mr. Van Buren had been pub- 
 lished in all the papers of the South ; but . . . the Southern 
 people did not entertain such narrow prejudices against him, 
 and were not so illiberal as to oppose him on that account. . . . 
 The fact was, that the Southern people admitted that the pres- 
 ent state of things in relation to slavery was wrong, and they 
 only waited a propitious period to abrogate the evil.""" These 
 were the words of one of the most earnest and consistent oppon- 
 ents of the color discrimination. They indicate that much of 
 the opposition to disfranchisement was based on broad humani- 
 tarian and democratic principles, and that the attitude represent- 
 ed by Eeigart's fierce denunciations of the South was just be- 
 ginning to become important. The vote on Dunlop 's amendment 
 resulted in its defeat by 86 to 36, and when it was offered 
 again with $250 instead of $200 and a proviso that negroes 
 should not be permitted to hold office it was again rejected, 
 this time by a vote of 84 to 40.^°° Another amendment, offered 
 
 '^Ihid., IX., pp. 221. 3.50, 351, .352, Meredith; IX., p. 391, Brown: X., p. 
 56, Scott. 
 
 ^Jiid., X., p. 107. 
 
 "' Ihia., X., p. 11 
 
 ^nid., X., p. lis Jenks. 
 
 ^^Jhid.. X.. pp. 124, 125, Earle. 
 
 "'iftjd.. X.. p. 125. 
 
 [67] 
 
•6 8 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 by 2\ir. iMerrill, extending the suffrage to free men of color 
 who could read and write was defeated b}^ the still more decisive 
 vote of 91 to 26/ An attempt was also made to secure a ckiuse, 
 like that in the Connecticut Constitution of 1818, providing that 
 all persons entitled to vote before the ratification of the new 
 constitution should continue to have the right of suffrage ; but 
 the motion was rejected by 73 to 42.- Then the report of 
 the committee as amended by the insertion of the word "white" 
 was adopted by a vote of 88 to 33.^ 
 
 There seems to have been no tangible principle as far as the 
 geographical distribution of the votes was concerned. One might 
 expect that in the eastern part of the state where free negroes 
 were most numerous opposition to negro suffrage would have 
 been most general, but such was not the case. The convention 
 was composed of senatorial and representative delegates. Of 
 seven representative delegates from Philadelphia city, where the 
 number of blacks was largest, four voted against the disfran- 
 chising amendment. One out of eight from Philadelphia county, 
 two of three from Bucks county, four of six from Lancaster, 
 one of two from Adams, and all four from Chester also voted 
 on the side of the black man. Perhaps the influence of the 
 Quakers in eastern Pennsylvania had mitigated the race antip- 
 athy of the whites. Comparing the vote with that in the New 
 York convention of 1821, it is obvious that Pennsylvania was 
 much less liberal toward the negro than was New York seven- 
 teen years before. Indeed there was a larger proportionate 
 minority on the side of the colored man in both Tennessee and 
 North Carolina. One member, who, had he voted, would have 
 sided with the minority shovild not be forgotten. Thaddeus 
 Stevens, a native of Vermont, and a graduate of Dartmouth 
 College, had come down into Pennsylvania and established him- 
 self as a lawyer in York county near the border of Maryland. 
 Here he observed the workings of the fugitive slave law, saw 
 one of the worst aspects of negro servitude, helped defend colored 
 men claimed as fugitives, and developed an intense hatred of 
 
 » Ibid , X., pp. 120. i;;o. 
 » iwa., X., p. 181. 
 
 ^ tbia., X., p. 134. 
 
 [68] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 6& 
 
 slavery.^ He took au active part in the debates of the conven- 
 tion, but strange to say never spoke or voted on the negro 
 suffrage question. When the constitution was finally adopted 
 however, he refused to sign it because he could not sanction 
 any discrimination on account of race or color.^ 
 
 Pennsylvania was the last state in which, after negroes had 
 once voted under a semblance of legality, a color discrimination 
 was adopted excluding them from the electorate. Deleware had 
 disfranchised them in 1792, Kentucky in 1799, Maryland in 
 1801, New Jersey in 1807, Connecticut in 1818, Tennessee in 
 1834, North Carolina in 1835, and Pennsylvania in 1838. New 
 York had imposed severe restrictions in 1821, and the Federal 
 Government passed the last act permitting negroes to vote in the 
 territories in 1809 in organizing the Territory of Illinois. In 
 ^Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware, 
 legislative or judicial action had been taken, before or at the 
 time the disfranchising measures were adopted, that impliedly 
 or expressly recognized that colored persons of some descriptions 
 had had a right to vote. In Tennessee and North Carolina, 
 they voted in such great numbers that the legality of negro 
 suffrage had to be admitted, although it was doubtful how their 
 right to vote was first acquired. In Pennsylvania the right 
 was more doubtful still, and the supreme court of that state, 
 after the privilege had been totally abrogated, decided that it 
 had never existed. In none of the states, probably, was negro- 
 voting uniform ; in many localities they did not vote at all, and' 
 where they did vote, many never came to the polls. The- 
 action to disfranchise them, at least in some instances, was taken 
 because the number of them who voted was becoming consider- 
 able, even their friends practically admitting that it would not 
 do to let them have any real influence in elections. Many of those' 
 who opposed disfranchisement were men of broad views and' 
 liberal sentiments, were influenced by the Revolutionary ideals^ 
 of lil)erty and equality and hy the principles of the first cham- 
 pions of the anti-slavery cause, and were often men of great 
 intellectual ability, such as Governor Livingston, Chancellor 
 
 McCall, S. W., Thaddeus tSterens, Am. Statesmen Series, pp. 20, 21, 26,. 
 Ibid., p. 48. 
 
 [69] 
 
70 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 Kent, Eiifiis King, Martin Van Biiren and Judge Gaston. A new 
 element of opposition to restrictions on the right of colored men 
 to the elective franchise is disclosed in the speeches of Jay in the 
 New York convention of 1821 and of Reigart in the Pennsylvania 
 convention of 1837 and 1838, and in the charges that abolitionists 
 were championing the side of the negro. Henceforward the 
 question of negro suffrage was destined to become increasingly 
 involved with the question of slavery and with the sectional con- 
 troversy between the North and the South. 
 
 [70] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 71 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 SUFFRAGE AND ANTI-SLAVERY, 1838 TO 1846 
 
 The question of negro suffrage had several times, up to 1838, 
 been a matter of considerable popular concern. The discussions 
 on the subject were, however, more or less isolated: they were not 
 results or part of an agitation continued through many years. 
 The question was long to remain a minor one and did not be- 
 come a leading issue till after the Civil War; but it became in 
 some degree a party question. Although negro suffrage was not 
 incorporated as a plank in party platforms and although the 
 votes for and against it were not confined by party lines, the 
 agitation in favor of it, as the subsequent account will show, was 
 to be in most instances more or less definitely connected with the 
 abolitionist and anti-slavery movements and with the Liberty, 
 Free Soil and Republican parties. The records, however, are 
 not as continuous as the agitation probably was and hence there 
 will be very appreciable gaps in the narrative. 
 
 New York, Rhode Island^ New Jersey 
 
 In the autumn of 1838, some of the anti-slavery men of the 
 eighth senatorial district of New York questioned Addison Gar- 
 diner, afterward Lieutenant-Governor, but then Democratic can- 
 didate for state senator, concerning his opinions on various negro 
 subjects, among others the question of extending the suffrage to 
 colored men on an equality with whites. In a letter dated, 
 Rochester, October 16, 1838, and addressed to eight members of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society of Genessee County, he replied, in ef- 
 fect, that negroes were not capable of being good voters, but that 
 he did not "deem their numbers or influence in this State suf- 
 ficient to justify us in withholding from them the right of suf- 
 frage. There should be no exception to the doctrine of equal 
 
 [71] 
 
72 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSlix 
 
 rights without a strong necessity, and that necessity I do not 
 conceive to exist in the present case. "^ When Thomas W. Door 
 was trying to secure extension of the elective franchise in Rhode 
 Island in 1841, he took the ground that the suffrage was not a 
 privilege but an inalienable natural right.- Yet the framers of 
 the Dorr Constitution, adopted November 18, 1841, used the 
 words, ''Every white male citizen," to describe electors, at the 
 same time exempting colored people from taxation.^ This race 
 discrimination may have been due to the influence of foreigners 
 in the State ; for the Constitution that actually went into force, 
 adopted in November 1842, extended the suffrage to native citi- 
 zens who paid one dollar in taxes or had done militia serice, but 
 only to such foreign born citizens as ov/ned one hundred and 
 thirty-four dollars worth of real estate.^ The New Jersey con- 
 stitutional convention of 1844 made the color distinction adopted 
 by statute in 1807 a part of the constitution itself. None of the 
 speeches are reported, and therefore, although the suffrage was 
 discussed, it is impossible to tell whether anything was said con- 
 cerning the negroes. The subject was apparently brought up 
 but once, and then by a petition "from sundry colored inhabit- 
 ants, praying to be admitted to the right of suffrage. ' '^ Another 
 petition was presented asking that the elective franchise be ex- 
 tended to women." These somewhat unrelated occurances lead 
 up to the consideration of the New York Convention of 1846. 
 
 New^ York, 1846 
 
 The discriminating clause adopted in 1821 had probably dis- 
 franchised all but a few negroes. Some of them must have ac- 
 cumulated more or less property during the next generation, and 
 perhaps the requirement of a freehold estate was not strictly 
 enforced. In 1845, there were about one thousand colored vot- 
 ers, while twice that many negroes were taxed.'^ The anti-slav- 
 
 ^ New York Wcelclij Tribune, October 26, 1846. 
 
 - Richman, I. B., Rhode Island, p. 290. 
 
 ^ Green, G. W., A Short History of Rhode Island, p. 320. 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 306, 307. 
 
 ^Journal of Proceedings of the New Jersey Convention of 18U, pp. 49-50, 63 
 
 'Ibid., p. 102. 
 
 ''New York Convention Report, 1846, p. 790, Dana. 
 
 [72] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 73 
 
 ery discussions current at the time made it inevitable that the 
 question shoukl arise in the convention: shall the negro's right 
 to vote be further extended and made equal with the white man 's, 
 or shall it be totally abrogated? There was undoubtedly more 
 or less agitation of the suffrage question during the election of 
 delegates to the convention. A member from St. Lawrence said 
 it was the only issue in that county, that he had been inter- 
 rogated, and had announced his opposition to negro suffrage.^ 
 On June 13, 1846, the constitutional convention adopted a resolu- 
 tion ordering the committee on elective franchise to inquire into 
 the expediency of abolishing the property qualification for 
 negroes.^ On the 15th of July, the committee reported back 
 an article which altogether deprived them of the elective fran- 
 chise and confined it to "white male citizens." In explanation, 
 it was said later that all property qualifications were anti-re- 
 publican, and that negroes ought to be excluded from the elect- 
 orate entirely on account of their race or admitted on an equal- 
 ity with whites for the sake of their humanity." In support of 
 disfranchisement, many of the arguments of previous discussions 
 were again employed. Negroes were of an inferior race. They 
 were under a curse from which there was no recovery. They 
 were aliens by the fiat of the Almighty, separated from the 
 whites not by petty distinction which time could obliterate, but 
 by the broad and permanent distinction of race.^^ Political 
 equality would mean social equality ; the negroes themselves had 
 announced that they desired equal privileges in churches and 
 schools and with respect to holding office, and that it was God's 
 design to annihilate caste by bringing the races together in this 
 country.^- Even if the popular prejudice were mistaken or were 
 transient, it should be taken into account: "we had got to take 
 notice of prejudices, so far as they would influence the true or- 
 ganization of society. "^^ Moreover the feeling against negroes 
 was founded in reason, for they furnished a much larger pro- 
 portion than white people of the criminals in the prisons of the 
 
 » Ibid., p. 777, Russel. 
 ^ IWd., p. 68. 
 
 ^"JbUl., p. 7.SM, Kt'impcly. p. 790, Buri;. 
 
 ^^Ibi(J., p. 7Sfi. Hunt. p. 78!>. Perkins, p. 791. HaiTison. 
 
 ^^Ibia., p. 785. Kennedy, p. 788, Stow. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., pp. 787, 788, Stow. 
 
 [73] 
 
74 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 state, and were in general more degraded than the same class in 
 the South/* To extend suffrage to free colored persons would 
 encourage migration into the state. The stringent law of Ohio, 
 which forbade free blacks to reside within the commonwealth, 
 might be adopted by Kentucky. New York would then become 
 a reservoir into which other states could pour this undesirable 
 class, and an avalanche of men raised in bondage would tell the 
 people of New York how to conduct a free government. The 
 result would be to lower the position of the working people by 
 bringing them into contact with a degraded race." Suffrage 
 was a privilege, not a right, and black men ought to claim it as 
 an inalienable natural right no more than women and children. 
 Negroes were not bona fide citizens. The whites had formed 
 themselves, or were formed by the operation of circumstances 
 and the law of necessity, into a distinct nation, and they had a 
 right to exclude negroes if they desired. Negroes also had a 
 right to migrate from the country and set a government of their 
 own. Their destiny, far from ignoble, was to return to Africa, 
 and to teach the dusky, naked savages and idolators there, the 
 arts and learning of a superior race.^*^ One member, a native 
 of Baltimore, Maryland, agreed with Thomas Jefferson that 
 negroes were capable of much improvement. He denied, how- 
 ever, that suffrage would benefit them, and he made a significant 
 charge against the abolitionists, who extended their sympathies 
 to the extreme link of humanity because it was the extreme link 
 of humanity. In IMaryland, the anti-slavery cause was making 
 rapid progress, he said, until Northern fanatics interfered : ' ' On 
 that day, anti-slavery was left dead upon the field, and the 
 loosened fetters of the slave were replaced with double rivets. — 
 The destruction of active efforts of anti-slavery in the South, 
 is the only victory I have ever known abolitionism to gain. ' '^^ 
 
 The champions of equal rights denied that slaveholders had 
 ever been on the point of manumitting their slaves. ^^ Anyone, 
 said one of them, wiio voted to deprive black men of their poli- 
 
 ^*lbia., pp. 784, 785, Kennedy. 
 
 ^5/ftirf, p. 788, Stow. 
 
 ^« Ibid., p. 777, Riissel, p. 783. Kennedy, pp. 186, 787; Stow. 
 
 "Ibid., pp 784, 785, Kennedy. 
 
 "iMtf., p. 786, A. W. Young. 
 
 [74] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 75 
 
 tical rights was a friend of slavery.^'^ Negroes were not natur- 
 ally inferior to whites. Color was merely an incident of lati- 
 tude. De Witt Clinton had favored amalgamation to improve 
 the species. Africans were fully as intelligent as immigrants 
 from Europe, and it did not become a man of sense, to infer 
 that, because of a black skin and curly hair, the negroes were 
 not endowed with minds equal to those of any other race or na- 
 tion.-'^ Over and over again, members urged that they were 
 men. and, according to the great Declaration, entitled to equal 
 rights, and not justly to be governed without their own con- 
 sent.-^ Although it was said that negroes could legally sit on 
 juries, and although an instance was given of a negro who 
 served as juryman in Buffalo, it was admitted that a great prej- 
 udice against them prevailed. In New York, they were not 
 even permitted to drive a cart. They were so greatly oppressed 
 and degraded as to make it a wonder that criminals among 
 them were not much more numerous.-- White women and 
 children were protected by the men ; but no one would stand up 
 for the colored race, who therefore needed the suffrage as a 
 means of protection.-^ The word "white" was too indefinite 
 and might cause hardship.-* There was no danger that negroes 
 would become too numerous, for they were already being whiten- 
 ed out of existence by amalgamation,-^ and the experience of 
 New England showed that there was no danger of an influx 
 from other states.-" 
 
 The votes in the convention show little change of sentiment 
 since 1821. On striking out the word "white" and permitting 
 negroes to vote under the same restrictions as other citizens, 
 there were 37 ayes and 63 noes.-' There were 42 ayes and 50 
 noes on a motion to reduce the property qualification from $250 to 
 $100.-* A motion to retain qualified suffrage provision of the 
 
 1" Ibid., p. TOO, Simmons 
 
 =" 7hi<t., p. 7S(i, Younsr. Watcrbury. p. 789. Simmons, p. S20. Bruce. 
 
 -1 Ibid., p. 77(5, Bnice and olhers, p. 78.".. 
 
 =2 Ibid., p. 777. t^tvong. p. 785, Dana. p. 780. Rhoades. 
 
 ■"^lUd., p. 786, Waterbury. 
 
 '^ Ibid., p. 776, Burr. 
 
 "-'Ibid., p. 776. Burr. 
 
 "'Ibid., p. 788. 
 
 '''Ibid., p. 788. 
 
 as Ibid., p. 790. 
 
 [75] 
 
76 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 old constitution was adopted by 63 to 32,-*' and a subsequent 
 proposition to remove all restrictions on the right of colored 
 persons to vote was defeated by 75 to 29."" An attempt to in- 
 troduce an educational qualification was laughed at,^^ but it was 
 decided by a vote of 73 to 26 on October 2, 1846, to submit to 
 -the people, at the fall election, the question of equal suffrage 
 to colored persons.'^ 
 
 This question was directly at issue in the convention only on 
 the motion to remove all restrictions that did not apply equally 
 to w^hites, which received 29 votes in its favor. Fourteen of 
 these were cast by natives of New England states, of whom 
 there were forty in a convention of one hundred and twenty-six 
 members. The New Englanders therefore comprised a little less 
 than one-third of the convention but gave about one half the 
 votes for negro suffrage. jMost of the votes on that side came 
 from the North and especially from the West. A decided change 
 from the situation in 1821, when no geographical grouping of 
 votes could be noticed, is also shown by the fact that the city 
 of New York, then about equally divided, now cast fifteen of its 
 sixteen votes against extension of negro privileges. 
 
 The vote of New York City may have been due to the influence 
 of foreigners in politics. Or, perhaps it was due to the fervor of 
 the Democrats, who controlled the convention, and whom ardent 
 anti-slavery men held responsible for the defeat of negro suf- 
 frage.^^ The Tribune complained, in an editorial headed, "The 
 Elective Franchise — Dough Face Stock Rising," that the negro 
 question had been postponed and was later "to be crowded 
 through in the most hasty manner, and so as to serve the peculiar 
 interests of the South." A member of the committee that re- 
 ported the first disfranchising article had been made a revenue 
 official at New York. "Had he left out the word white," asks 
 the Tribune, "would he have gotten that berth from a President 
 who wars against ]\Iexico to restore negro slavery where it had 
 been abolished?"^* This paper urged the friends of equal suf- 
 
 -^ ima., p. 791. 
 
 "0 Ibid., p. 820 
 
 3' Ibid., p. 820. 
 
 ''-Ibid., p. 824. 
 
 33 New York Weellij Tribune. October 10, 1S46 
 
 =" Ibid. 
 
 [76] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 77 
 
 frage to bring out the largest possible vote in its favor, exhorted 
 "every true Republican, every just man.... every man who 
 reveres God and loves rightousness" to do his utmost '"to render 
 this instalment of justice to the long suffering children of 
 Africa," ridiculed "the exaction of dirt as a rec^uisite to con- 
 stitute a man a voter," applied to the question of equal suffrage 
 the test of the Declaration of Independence and decided that 
 longer disfranchisement of colored men would be "an outrage 
 and a shame. ""'^ After the election of November 3, the Tribune 
 charged that in New York and Brooklyn, at many voting places, 
 Tammany made it difficult or im^possible to secure a ballot for 
 the constitution or for equal suffrage.^*' The defeat of the prop- 
 osition to abolish the property qualification for blacks and put 
 them on an equality with whites was however too decisive to be 
 questioned. The vote stood 22-1,336 to 85,406.'^^ Several counties 
 in the North and West gave majorities in favor of negro suf- 
 frage ; Clinton, Franklin, Washington, Essex, Cattaraugus, Wyo- 
 ming, Cortland, Oswego and i\Iadison. The same counties gave 
 heavy votes for Van Buron when he was Free Soil candidate for 
 president in 1848,'® but his total vote was larger by half than 
 that in favor of tlie negro in 1846, as one would expect in view 
 of the fact that the suffrage question brought out only about 
 two-thirds of the normal vote of the State. That one fifth of 
 the voters of this commonwealth, twenty years before the re- 
 construction period, should have been desirous of putting negroes 
 on an equality with white men at the polls, is evidently of no 
 ■small significance in accounting for the triumph of radical pol- 
 icies in dealing with the negro problem in the South. Nor was 
 New York the only eastern state to deal with the question. The 
 next year, 1847, the anti-slavery agitators in Connecticut evi- 
 dently secured a legislative enactment submitting the negro suf- 
 frage issue to popular vote, although the legislature refused to 
 endorse the striking out of the word "white" from the consti- 
 tution.^^ Connecticut was to give Van Buren five thousand 
 
 ■"^IbUt., October 10, 24, :il. 
 ■^^Jbift., Novembpr 14. 
 
 ^' Tribuvc Aliiwriac. 1S7". p. ">." : Appleton's Annual CitclnpcdUi, 18G0. p. 490; 
 also Niles, Register, LXXI., p. 198, Nov. 28, 1846. 
 '^^Whig Almanac, 1849, p. 54. 
 M Niles' Register, LXXII., p. 227, June 12, 1847. 
 
 [77] 
 
78^ BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 votes in a total of sixty-two thousand in 18-18,^" but in 1847, on 
 the negro suffrage question, only about a third of the vote of 
 the state was called out, and the proposed extension of the fran- 
 chise was defeated by 19,495 to 5,616.^^ 
 
 *o Whig Almanac, 1849., p. 64. 
 
 " Niles" Kegisicf, LXXII, p. 148, Nov. 6, 1847; .Vpploton's Annual divloprie- 
 ma. 18B!', p. 205. 
 
 [78] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 79 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE STRUGGLE IN THE NORTHWEST, 1844-1857 
 
 The most notable efforts, however, to secure negro suffrage 
 during the forties and fifties were made in the Northwest. In 
 all the states carved out of the Northwest Territory and in Iowa 
 and Minnesota, the question was to be agitated at various times 
 before the outbreak of the Civil War. 
 
 The first constitutional convention of Iowa sat during the 
 month of October 18-4-1. Composed of 72 members, 19 natives of 
 New^ York and New England, 26 natives of slave states, and the 
 rest natives of the other state's and foreign countries,^ the great 
 majority of the convention represented strong prejudices against 
 black men. One member offered a resolution that petitions for 
 negro suffrage should never be entertained by the Legislature, 
 and complained that, under the Territorial government, the 
 practice of sending negro petitions had become a nuisance.' 
 Another member, a native of New York, representing the Du- 
 buque district asserted that his constituents had instructed Mm 
 to get a provision put in the constitution which would keep 
 negroes out of the state, that their attitude was: "Slave or no 
 negro," and that if their wishes were not carried out, Iowa 
 would be overrun by broken down slaves from JMissouri.^ In 
 accordance w^ith these views, the convention adopted, by a vote 
 of 32 to 21, a section which made it the duty of the legislature, 
 as soon as practicable, to pass laws to prevent the settlement of 
 colored people in the state.* Eleven days later, however, this 
 
 1 Virginia n, No. Carolina 6, Kentucky 8, Tennessee 1, New York 9, Ver- 
 mont f), Massachusetts 1, Connecticut 1, New Hampshire 1, Maine 1, Pennsyl- 
 vania 13, Illinois 1, Indiana 1, Ohio 8, New Jersey 1, Scotland 1, Ireland 1, 
 Germany 1 ; Shamhaugh, P.. F.. Editor, Fragment of the Debates of the Iowa 
 constitutional Conventions of ISl,', and IS'iG, etc., pp. 408, 409, 410. 
 
 'ma., p. 123. 
 
 ^ itia., p. lo.j. 
 
 * tOia.. p. 66. 
 
 [79] 
 
80 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 provision was stricken out, by a vote of 35 to 32, because it was 
 feared that it would run counter to the Federal constitution and 
 that it would make more uncertain the admission of Iowa into 
 the Union." 
 
 Several petitions were presented which asked that persons of 
 color be permitted to vote. One of them was referred to a com- 
 mittee which reported, without other discussion, against grant- 
 ing the request.'' When another was presented, and motion to 
 lay it on the table and to refer it to the committee on suffrage 
 and citizenship had been lost, ]\Ir. Hall, who made the adverse 
 report on the former petition, moved that it be referred to a 
 select committee of thirteen. One member opposed this motion 
 because he feared to send abroad a report that would agitate 
 the country and produce excitement and heated discussion. There 
 were, however, several who, denying that they were abolitionists 
 and admitting that the prayer of the petitioners ought not to be 
 granted, argued that the Abolitionists, though small in numbers, 
 had a right to be heard, that the citizens who favored negro suf- 
 frage were "as worthy as any others," and that their requests 
 should be met with reason and with candor. Mr. Kail's motion, 
 therefore, prevailed.^ The arguments which the committee ad- 
 vanced in their report, show how much the political thinking of 
 that time was charged with the principles of Jefferson, and how 
 necessary it was considered to reconcile political action with the 
 theories of the Declaration of Independence. ''That all men are 
 created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with equal un- 
 alienable rights, your committee are free to admit; that, so far 
 as nature is concerned, those rights are as sacred to the black 
 man as the white man, and should be so regarded. This, how- 
 ever, is a mere abstract proposition, and although strictly true, 
 when applied to man in a state of nature, yet it becomes very 
 much modified when man is considered in an artificial state in 
 which government places him." Women and children are not 
 permitted to vote. They "are denied what we abstractly term 
 inalienable rights." — "The negro is surely no better than our 
 wives and children." It is erroneous to confuse natural with 
 
 ^IDia., pp. 155, 156. 
 ' IMd., pp. 3 0, IT. 
 'Ibid., pp. 26, 27, 28, 29. 
 
 [80] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 81 
 
 artificial rights or to treat "the artificial institution of govern- 
 ment as sacred and unalienable to man as the abstract rights of 
 nature." Government is strictly conventional. "It is made tor 
 those who are to be benefited by it, and is not bound to unbar its 
 doore and receive every vagrant who may take refuge in it. — 
 In forming or maintaining a government, it is the privilege and 
 duty of those who have or are about to associate together for 
 that purpose, to modify and limit the rights of, or wholly ex- 
 clude from the association, any and every species of persons who 
 would endanger or lessen, or in the least impair the enjoyment of 
 these rights. — It is the party to the compact that should com- 
 plain, not the stranger. — True, these persons may be unfortu- 
 nate, but the government is not unjust. — 'It is the luhite popula- 
 tion who are about to form a government for themselves. No 
 negro is represented in this convention, and no one proposes to 
 become a member of the compact. — The negro not being a party 
 to the government has no right to partake of its privileges." It 
 would be dangerous to encourage their migration into the state : 
 "The policy of other states would drive the whole black popu- 
 lation of the Union upon us. The ballot box would fall into 
 their hands. — There are strong reasons to induce the belief that 
 the two races could not exist in the same government upon an 
 equality without discord and violence that might eventuate in 
 insurrection, bloodshed, and final extermination of one of the 
 two races. No one can doubt that a degrading prostitution of 
 moral feeling would ensue ; a tendency to amalgamate the two 
 races would be superinduced ; a degraded and reckless popula- 
 tion would follow , idleness crime and misery would come in 
 their train ; and government itself fall into anarchy or des- 
 potism."^ 
 
 The constitution proposed in 1844 was rejected, and there 
 was chosen another convention which met in 1846. In the frag- 
 mentary records of its proceedings now available, no reference 
 to negro suffrage can be found. But it is improbable that any 
 stronger sentiment favorable to negroes was exhibited than in 
 1844, for of the 32 members, ten Whigs and twenty-two Demo- 
 
 « Joica Consiititlional Dehaie^. IS'tl, 11., pp. 6.50, 651. The report was quoted 
 in full by the minority of a comniittee of the convention of 1857. Shambaugh, 
 B. F., Historii of the Constitutions of Iowa. pp. 213, 218. 
 
 [81] 
 
82 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 crats, who composed the convention 15 were natives of slave 
 States.*^ Iowa was yet to become the most radical on negro 
 questions of all the states east of New England, but at this time 
 there was probably less of liberal feeling toward colored people 
 than in the neighboring Territory of Wisconsin. 
 
 Wisconsin, 1846 to 1848 
 
 The negro suffrage question had already been agitated there. 
 In January 1844, six colored men petitioned the Legislature to 
 extend the suffrage to all persons holding real estate, or one 
 hundred dollars worth of taxable property. This petition was 
 referred to a select committee of the council but no favorable 
 action was taken. In the House, where similar petitions were 
 l^resented, the judiciary committee reported that it was inexpedi- 
 ent to meddle with the question.^** But it could not be kept 
 down. The constitutional convention which met at Madison, 
 October 5, 1846, received several petitions of the same nature, 
 one of them asking for the removal of all distinctions on account 
 of color, sex or nation.^^ The debates of that body show that 
 previous discussion of the question had been considerable, that 
 it was pressed chiefly by the abolitionists and their sympathizers, 
 and that politicians had already clearly recognized that the 
 people of the western part of the territory were almost unani- 
 mously opposed to negro voting and that many in the eastern 
 counties were strongly in favor of it. During the legislative 
 session in the first months of 1846, Marshall M. Strong of Wau- 
 kesha had spoken vigorously in favor of impartial suffrage ; the 
 abolitionists of that county congratulated themselves on a new 
 acquisition and passed resolutions commending his attitude ; but 
 in the constitutional convention he expressly repudiated his 
 former views and argued on the other side.^- It was charged 
 
 " Shambaugh. Fragments, etc., pp. 414, 415. Virginia 4, Kentucky 6, North 
 Carolina ;>, Alabama 1. Maryland 3, New York ?,, Connecticut 4, Vermont 4, 
 Pennsylvania 2, Ohio. 4. 
 
 '^''Council Jour., Wis. Terr. Legis.. 1844-4."), p. 230; House Jour., 184.3-44, pp. 
 167, 336. Baker, F. E , A Brief History of the Elective Franchise in Wisconsin. 
 State Hist. Soc. of Wis.. Proc, 1893. p. 4. 
 
 " Journal of the Convention of 1S1,6, pp. 82, 237 ; Madison Express, Nov. 3, 
 3 846. 
 
 "Madison Express, Oct. 27, 1846, notice of Strong's speech and editorial, 
 "Crawfishing." 
 
 [82] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 8S 
 
 that others had likewise changed their position, that six, out of 
 eleven Waukesha delegates, had voted against negro suffrage 
 against the known will of a majority of their constituents.^-^ One 
 member maintained that every delegate was pledged on the ques- 
 tion, and that a great many members from the eastern counties 
 could not have been elected if it had not been known that they 
 were in favor of negro suffrage.^* Several members of the con- 
 vention, in speaking on the side of the colored people, felt it 
 necessary to deny that they were Abolitionists or connected with 
 the Abolitionist party/^ Nevertheless, the opponents of negro 
 suffrage identified it with that party, and Moses jM. Strong in 
 his speech on the question "came down — like a perfect ava- 
 lanche" upon the anti-slavery enthusiasts and declared for "war 
 to the knife and knife to the hilt."^*' The same speaker said 
 that unless negroes were refused the ballot, the constitution 
 would not receive fifty votes west of Rock River, for the inhabi- 
 tants of that region would consider it an infringement on their 
 natural rights to be placed on an equality with negroes. Mr. 
 Gibson replied that the North and East as strenuously advocated 
 giving black men the right to vote as the West opposed it ; that 
 this feeling was increasing daily and would continue to increase 
 as long as the question might be agitated." The next day a 
 motion to submit the question separately to the people, was op- 
 posed on the ground that the West feared, mistakably indeed, 
 that the East intended to force negro equality upon them and 
 would, therefore, vote down the entire constitution ; they could not 
 be convinced that most of the people in the East were "sound" 
 on this matter, for the debates in the legislature had made it 
 appear that negro suffrage was the settled policy of the eastern 
 counties.^^ The debate on striking out the word "white" from 
 the suffrage article took place October 21, and next day the' 
 discussion turned on the proposition to take a separate vote on; 
 
 ^^ Ibid. 
 
 " Ibid., Speech of Mr. Burchard ; also Wisconsin Arrjiis, Madison, Oct. 27, 1846, 
 ^^ Madison Express. Oct. 27, 184(i. Warren Chase, .Judd ; also communi- 
 cation by an "Inquirer" in issue of Nov. 10. 
 '«7Md., Oct. 27. 
 
 ^^ Wisconsin Arfjus, Oct. 27, 1846. Speeches of Bevans, Burnett, and Moses. 
 M. Strong. 
 
 [83] 
 
84 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 the question of colored suffrage. As was to be expected, the 
 friends of the negroes based their arguments on the principles 
 of equality, of democracy, of the natural rights of man, and 
 of the injustice of taxation without representation; and then 
 half gave away their case by carefully proving that granting 
 the elective franchise would not encourage negro immigration. 
 The negroes, said Mr. Judd, had been brought up here and 
 knew only our laws, country and language, and must be regarded 
 as citizens. Mr. Burchard admitted that Africans were degraded 
 and borne down by the general prejudice against them and that 
 social equality was impossible. But the removal of the color 
 discrimination would be in accord with the principle that 
 "all men are born free and equal." Negroes had rights and 
 needed the ballot to protect them. "Is it not wrong to deprive 
 the negro of the right to vote and then as an equivalent tender 
 to him exemption of his property from taxation? We live 
 * * * in an age of progressive democracy. * '* * Until 
 you can prove that it is a crime to be born with a colored skin, 
 I appeal to your justice, to your humanity, to let this provision 
 mark the progress of liberal views. "^'^ About a dozen others 
 were on the same side, actuated not only by their theoretical 
 democracy, but also, as Mr. Gibson avowed, by the desire to 
 strike at the institution of slavery. On the other side, also, 
 familiar arguments were used. The right to vote was not a 
 natural right but a franchise bestowed or withheld as the public 
 good demanded. There were only a few in the state, and it 
 was therefore useless to agitate a mere abstraction. Negroes 
 were too servile and despised ever to be put on an equality with 
 white men, but giving them the suffrage would tend to promote 
 intermarriage and amalgamation. Mr. Ryan, who many years 
 later as chief-justice proved himself the greatest jurist of "Wis- 
 consin, feared that the state would be overrun by fugitive slaves 
 who then made Canada their destination. He was in favor of 
 ameliorating the conditions of the negroes and thought the 
 plan of colonization was the most practicable means; but social 
 equality w^as impossible. He said that in New York City every 
 
 "Burchard's speech is printed, evidently from a manuscript, In the Madison 
 Express, Oct. 27, 1S4G. 
 
 [84] 
 
OLBRlCri— XEGRO SUFFRAGE 85 
 
 negro was a thief and every negro woman worse, and asserted 
 that it was wrong to mingle races on whom God had put an 
 insuperable mark of separation. -° On the 26th, "W. H. Clark 
 made a similar argument and confirmed his reasoning by quot- 
 ing from the speech of IMcQueen in the North Carolina conven- 
 tion of 1835.-^ He apparently agreed witii some negro cham- 
 pions that the ancient Egyptians were negroes, but the blacks 
 had never had energj^ enough to assert their freedom, had not 
 shown themselves safe depositories of political power, and even 
 in ancient Egypt when they had cradled the arts and sciences, 
 had been merely enlightened slaves. The pyramids, he said, 
 were "everlasting mementoes of the abject despotism which 
 forced unwilling hands to pile those masses to the clouds. "-- 
 
 The suffrage article had been reported to the convention with 
 the usual race discrimination, and the motion to strike out 
 "white" was defeated, after the debate of Oct. 21, by a vote of 
 91 to 12.-^ The proposition to submit the question to the test 
 of popular judgment was to be more successful. It was defend- 
 ed, on the ground that it vrould allay agitation l)y destroying the 
 ground on whieli the radical anti-slavery men stood, and 'that 
 it was in accord with democratic principles; and denounced, as 
 a firebrand to be thrown into the whole West, merely to gratify 
 a handful of violent abolitionists. ]\Iany of the eastern members 
 were no doubt influenced by the attitude of their constituents 
 and dared not attempt to stifle agitation, and probably they 
 also feared that the abolitionist vote would be cast against the 
 constitution unless an opportunity should be given to vote 
 directly on the negro suffrage issue. Accordingly, after the 
 amendment providing for separate submission had been twice 
 defeated,-* it was finally passed by a vote of 55 to 48.=^ 
 
 The suffrage question was not prominent among those discussed 
 
 ^ Ante, p. 45. 
 
 22 Madison Express. Nov. 3, 1846. 
 
 -^Journal of the Convenfion of IS^G. pp. 29, 67, 91, 94. The twelve were: 
 Atwood, Burcharcl, Warren, Chase, Doty, Gibson, Giddings, Goodell, Hun- 
 kins, Moore. Randall, Tweedy. 
 
 ^Madison Express, Oct. 27. 1846. 
 
 ■° Von. Jounial, pp. .324, 35">. For fracmontary reports of speeches, see 
 Maaison Express, for Oct. 27. and Nov. 3: TVisconsin Argus, for Oct. 27, 
 1846; Wisconsin Democrat, Saturdav. October 24, 1846. 
 
 [85] 
 
86 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 by the press, and the vote on the first Tuesday of April 1847, 
 indicates that little public attention was drawn to it. On March 
 30, the Madison Express published a letter from a New York 
 correspondent of the Milwaukee Sentinel, in which it was charged 
 that the convention had combined the question of the right to 
 hold office with the suffrage proposition, in order to insure its 
 defeat. No other reference to the subject appeared in this paper 
 during several weeks before and after the vote was taken. The 
 constitution was defeated by 20,232 to 14,119 and the negro 
 suffrage clause by 14,615 to 7,564.-*^ The southwestern counties 
 of the territory, where many southern people had settled, gave 
 very large majorities against the proposition to let black men 
 vote. The Germans along Lake Michigan, whether because an 
 attempt had been made in the convention to couple the vote on 
 foreign suffrage with that on negro suffrage, or because foreign- 
 ers had a natural antipathy to colored men, voted the same way. 
 Still, nearly half the votes on the question in Rock county, and 
 a majority of the votes on this issue, in Racine, Walworth, Wau- 
 kesha, Jefferson, Dodge, Fond du Lac, and Winnebago counties, 
 were cast on the side of equal rights. These counties, w^hicli 
 constituted a solid strip north and south across the eastern part 
 of the area then settled, had been occupied largely by New Eng- 
 landers, and the votes which they gave on this question fur- 
 nish a slight intimation of how potent was to be the influence 
 of New England in the anti-slavery movement and the strug- 
 gle for negro rights and privileges.-' 
 
 The defeat of the first constitution led to the election of 
 another convention, which met at ]).Iadison, December 15, 1847, 
 for the purpose of drawing up another instrument more likely 
 to meet the approval of the people. A large majority of the 
 sixty-nine members were natives of New York and New Eng- 
 land.-^ The vote of December 31, on the motion of ]\Ir. Chase, 
 
 =« Baker. F. E., op. clt.. p. 8 ; Gi-efrory, J- O., tJegro Suffrage in Wisconsin, 
 Trans. Wis. Acad, of Sciences, Arts and Letters, vol. XI.. p. 94. 
 
 -' Baker, F. E., op. cit., pp. 8, 9, 10 : Geer, E. M., The Louisiana Purchase, 
 Vol. VIII. of the History of North America, edited by G. C. Lee. pp. 306 to 309. 
 
 =s ]vie^ York 25, Connecticut 9, New Hampshire 3, Vermont 7, Massachusetts 
 G, Maine 1, Pennsylvania 2, New Jersey 1, Ohio 1, Northwest Territory 1, 
 Maryland 1, Virginia 1, Kentucky 4, Ireland 5, Bavaria 1, Norway 1, Journal 
 0} the convention of lS'i7 iS, with a Sketch of Debates. 
 
 [86] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 87 
 
 ^'a sterling old school Democrat,"-'' on striking out the word 
 ''white" was 45 to 22 against removing the discrimination. The 
 twenty-two who favored negro suffrage comprised twenty New 
 Yorkers and New Englanders, a Kentuckian and an Irishman. "° 
 On the following day Experience Estabrook of Walworth 
 county moved to grant the elective franchise to everyone 
 already in the territory, and to provide for legal regulations 
 in the ease of those who should come in the future.-^ His 
 proposition seems to have been ignored, but on January 3, 1848, 
 he offered an amendment to the suffrage article, providing "that 
 the legislature shall at any time have the power to admit col- 
 ored persons to the right of suffrage on such terms and under 
 such restrictions as may be determined by law," which was 
 adopted by a vote of 35 to 34.^- After some discussion, it was 
 reconsidered and was rejected by the same close vote. On the 
 next day, however, it was adopted with the further provision 
 that no such law should be valid unless ratified at a general 
 election by "a majority of all the votes cast at such election. "^^ 
 The records of speeches in this convention help reveal the 
 points of view from which the negro suffrage question was 
 regarded. Those who opposed giving the Legislature any power 
 to bring up the subject in the future declared that it had been 
 settled at the spring election, that there was already too much 
 feeling on negro questions, and that the proposed clause would 
 become a source of perpetual agitation, discord and strife.'^* 
 The other side argued that a considerable minority, "respectable 
 in numbers and respectable in intelligence," favored negro 
 suffrage and had a right to show their strength at the ballot 
 box. Seven years before, said Mr. Estabrook, it would not 
 have been possible to muster a corporal's guard who would have 
 been willing to let colored men vote ; but public opinion had 
 made such rapid progress that, in the preceding spring election, 
 several counties gave majorities for equal suffrage. If the 
 time should come when a majority should favor abrogating the 
 
 -9 Gregory, op. cit., p. 96 
 ^ Journal, etc., p. 145. 
 "^IJnn., p. 130. 
 '^IMd., p. 180. 
 
 XU%U., p. J.OU. 
 
 IMd., pp. 185, 192, 193. 
 
 ITiid., pp. 181, 103, Rountree, p. 1S4. Kilbourn, p. 192 Prentiss. 
 
 [87] 
 
88 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 color distinction, they ought not to be bound hand and foot 
 by constitutional prohibitions.^' Mr. Jackson, who had voted 
 to expunge the word "white", complained that some were accus- 
 tomed to charge abolitionism against those who favored colored 
 suffrage ; but, he and others explained, there were many besides 
 abolitionists who believed that giving blacks the elective fran- 
 chise was right in principle.^*' Mr. Estabrook said that "fat, 
 sleek-headed democracy" revolted at the bare mention of the 
 word "negro"; but he expressed the opinion that large num- 
 bers of Democrats in Walworth county favored negro suffrage. 
 He said also that the Whig convention of that county in the 
 fall of 1846 had adopted a resolution instructing their delegate 
 to work for universal suffrage, and that there was in the state 
 "what was called a liberty party, and universal suffrage was 
 their one idea."^^ 
 
 The legislature of the new state was not slow to act according 
 to its power with regard to the elective franchise. In March 
 1849, the Assembly by a vote of 35 to 32, and the Senate by 
 a vote of 9 to 5, passed a law submitting the question of equal 
 suffrage to the people. By a vote 35 to 22, the Assembly 
 inserted in the proposed amendment the words: "And eligible 
 to hold any office in the State." Perhaps some members were 
 the more willing to accept this change because they thought it 
 would insure the defeat of the whole proposition.^® The senti- 
 ment in favor of negro suffrage was not confined to any party ; 
 there was undoubtedly a widespread feeling against the arro- 
 gance of the South, which naturally connected itself with the 
 general agitation of negro questions.^'' A Whig paper charged 
 that the Democrats were opposed to negro voting.*" The Free 
 Soilers certainly did not make this question their main issue, 
 for they nominated for attorney-general, Marshall IM. Strong, 
 the apostate from the negro's cause in the convention of 1846.*^ 
 
 ^^Ibid., pp. 1.30, 18S, Estabrook. p. 181, Cole, Harvey, 192, Seagel. 
 ™7&«rf., p. 184, .Tackson, p. 198, Judd. 
 "/bid., pp. 183, 130. 
 
 ^Assembly Jourval, Mch. 8, 1849.. pp. ."587, .388; Senate Journal, Mch. 
 1849. p. 440. 
 
 ^' J. T. Gregory, op. cit. p. 97. 
 
 *" The Soufhport American. Aug 29, 1849. 
 
 *^lbia., Sept. 12. 
 
 [88] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 89 
 
 There can be little doubt, however, that most of those who 
 desired to let black men vote were in the ranks of the Free 
 Soilers ; but they were quarreling with the Old Time Democrats, 
 they made no campaign on the issue, and aroused little popular 
 interest. The total vote for governor was 31,727, but on negro 
 suffrage the total vote was less than ten thousand. The meas- 
 ure was carried in favor of the negroes by 5,265 to 4,075,*- but 
 it was assumed that nothing could be determined by so light a 
 vote, and it was not until 1866 that the supreme court inter- 
 preted the words, "a majority of all the votes cast at such elec- 
 tion", to mean a majority of the votes on the particular ques- 
 tion of negro suffrage and decided that colored people had 
 legally possessed the elective franchise for seventeen years.*^ 
 
 Illinois, 1847 
 
 Meanwhile this question had been raised in Illinois. Colored 
 people had scarcely any rights in that state, and politicians 
 assumed the disfranchisement of them as a matter of course. On 
 June 13, 1836, Lincoln, in announcing his political views wrote : 
 ''I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay 
 taxes or bear arms ("by no means excluding females)". But 
 from the early forties, anti-slavery men had been so persist- 
 ently advocating equality, citizenship, and education for 
 negroes that they liberalized sentiment tow^ard them in the 
 northern part of the state and created there a demand for 
 negro suffrage." Petitions praying for the repeal of all laws 
 making distinctions on account of color were sent to the legis- 
 lature in 1847,*' and inevitably the question came up in the 
 constitutional convention which sat during the summer of that 
 year. Petitions in considerable number for and against negro 
 rights were sent to the convention and indicated that the mat- 
 ter had been before the public mind. A clause forbidding the 
 legislature ever to grant the right of suffrage to colored people, 
 
 '•-Smith, T. C, The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northxvest. p. 333. 
 Gregory, op. cit. 
 
 1" 20 Wis. p .544. 
 
 ••* Harris, N. D., Xerjro Scrritiidc in Illinois, pp. 228, 231. 
 
 *^ House Journal, Feb. 0, 15, 1847, pp. 338, .302; Sen. Journal, .Ian. 0, pp. 22, 
 91. 148. 
 
 [89] 
 
90 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 was laid on the table, 91 to 60, and an article prohibiting inter- 
 inarriage with whites and declaring negroes forever ineligible 
 to office was defeated, 65 to 64." These propositions w^ere 
 probably laid aside as wholly impertinent. The votes certainly 
 are not an indication of a desire to have negroes vote or hold 
 office, for on June 22, when a motion was made to strike out the 
 word "white," from a resolution instructing a committee to 
 consider certain amendments of the suffrage clause, it was de- 
 feated, 187 to 8.*" The eight who favored the motion came 
 from northern counties of the state. Cross and Church from 
 Winnebago, Sibley and Deitz from McHenry, Swan from Lake, 
 Mason from Kendall, Judd from Kane, Whitney from Boone. 
 A similar distribution of sentiment is shown by the popular 
 vote on another negro question. By a vote of 87 to 56 the con- 
 vention referred separately to the people a clause which 
 directed the legislature to prohibit the immigration of colored 
 men into the state. When this proposition was submitted, 
 along with the constitution, in the spring of 1848, fourteen 
 northern counties were carried against it, but it was, neverthe- 
 less, adopted by 49,063 to 20,884,^^ 
 
 C.-ULiIFORNIA, 1849 
 
 The North, like the South, was averse to the presence of 
 negroes in a state of freedom, and about this time the same 
 feeling was manifested out on the Pacific coast. In the autumn 
 of 1849 a convention, composed of members whose birth-places 
 were scattered among sixteen states and five European coun- 
 tries,*^ met to frame a constitution for California. It was taken 
 for granted that negroes should not be electors, and the only 
 
 " Smith, op. cit., p. S'-'A. 
 
 " III. Con. Journal, 1847, p. 76 ; also Puhlications of the III. Hist. Library, 
 1904, p. 426. 
 
 <* Smith, op. cit., p. o34. 
 
 ♦'Classifled according to birthplace: Maine 1, Vermont 1. Rhode Island 1, 
 Massachusetts 2, Connecticut 1. New York 11, Pennsylvania 1, Maryland 5, 
 New Jersey 1, Virginia 3, Kentucky 3, Tennessee 1, Missouri 1, Florida 1, 
 Ohio 3, California 7, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, France, and Switzerland each 
 1, — 48. According to previous residence: Connecticut 1, MassacEusetts 2, 
 New York 10, New Jersey 2, Pennsylvania 1, Maryland 3, Ohio 1. Indiana 1, 
 Illinois 1, Wisconsin 1, Missouri 7, Virginia 2, Texas 1, Louisiana 4, Oregon 1, 
 California 8, Scotland 1. France 1.— 48. Cal. Con. Report., 1849. 
 
 [90] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 91 
 
 reference to tlie idea of negro suffrage was made by a mem- 
 ber who, in arguing in favor of permitting Indians to vote, 
 protested that they should not be classed with Africans.^" On 
 September 11, 1849, a motion was made to insert in the bill of 
 rights, a section which would prohibit the immigration of free 
 colored persons, and prevent slaveholders from bringing their 
 negroes to the state for the jiurpose of setting them free."^ The 
 precedent of Illinois was adduced in support of this provision. 
 Several members presented evidence that, unless it should be 
 adopted, slave owners would bring in their slaves, work them a 
 short time in the gold mines and then set them loose upon the 
 community.'^- "When this constitution goes forth without a 
 prohibitory clause relative to blacks, you will see a black tide 
 setting in here and spreading over the land."" "The whole 
 country will be filled wath emancipated slaves," said Mr. 
 Semple, "the worst species of population — prepared to do 
 nothing but steal, or live upon our means as paupers."^'* It 
 was agreed that free negroes were thriftless, ignorant, and 
 vicious and that their presence would be as great an evil as 
 slavery."^-^ The introduction of negroes would degrade the white 
 laborers. "The capitalists will fill the land with these living 
 machines, with all their attendant evils," said Wozencraft. 
 "Their labor will go to enrich the fcAV, and impoverish the 
 many : it will drive the poor and honest laborer from the field, 
 by degrading him to the level of the negro. "^"^ "Do you sup- 
 pose the Avhite population of this country will permit these 
 negroes to compete with them in working the mines?" asked 
 IMcCarver. "Sir, you will see the most fearful collisions that 
 have ever been presented in any country."^' Mr. Tuft de- 
 clared: "It would be a monopoly of the worst character. The 
 profits of the mines would go into the pockets of single individ- 
 
 «" Ibid., p. 70, (illhert. 
 
 •■"ibK/., p. 48, McCarver. 
 
 ''"-IWd., pp. 137, 138. 139. McCarver. Semple, Sept. 10, p. .".32. .Tones, p. 
 146. Stewart. 
 
 =>3 ma., p. 49. Wozencraft. 
 
 ^*Ihia., p. 138. 
 
 ^'Ibta., p. 50. Wozencraft, p. 138, McCarver, p. 142, Hastings, p. 148, 
 Semple. 
 
 ^"Ihid., p. 49. 
 
 ^T Ibia., p. 138. 
 
 [91] 
 
92 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 nals. The labor of intelligent and enterprising white men, who, 
 from w^ant of capital, are compelled to do their own work, 
 would afford no adequate remuneration. . . . What consist- 
 ency would there be in declaring that all men are free, and 
 then deny our oAvn white citizens the privilege of laboring and 
 subject them to the influence of monopolies which would not 
 only degrade their labor, but amount in efifect to a prohibition 
 of the right to labor, for I contend, sir, that no man can or will 
 labor unless he is remunerated by the result. "^^ It was not the 
 last time that race and labor questions came up together in 
 California, and, to those who have even slightly considered 
 the arguments of later years on Chinese immigration, some of 
 the utterances on the other side of this negro question will have 
 a remarkably familiar sound. If negroes are to be kept out, 
 asked Gilbert, "why not also erect barriers against the miser- 
 able natives of the Sandwich Islands and the Pacific archipel- 
 agoes, against the miserable, the degraded wretches from 
 Sydney and New South Wales, and against the refuse of popu- 
 lation from Chili, Peru and Mexico ?"^^ "I do contend," said 
 Mr. Shannon, a native of Ireland, who had seen prosperous 
 and intelligent blacks in New York, "that free men of color 
 have just as good a right, and ought to have, to emigrate here 
 as white men. I think, too, that the necessities of the territory 
 require them ; the necessities of eveiy state in the Union re- 
 quire them. They are required in very department of domestic 
 life ; they form a body that have become almost necessary for our 
 domestic purposes. ... I do not want the people of Cali- 
 fornia to be cut of¥ from the services of any particular body of 
 men. It matters not if they were baboons or any other class of 
 creations. "*''' It was argued that an exclusion clause would 
 violate the constitutional guarantee of the privileges and im- 
 munities of citizens, and that Congress, which contained many 
 members with Free Soil principles, would refuse to admit Cali- 
 fornia into the Union. The legislature could later take care to 
 prevent a deluge of undesirable population, but it was imme- 
 diately necessary, aside from questions of sound or unsound 
 
 ^i ma., p. 144. 
 
 "^Ibid., p. 150. 
 ^oibia., pp. 139, 14::J. 
 
 [92] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 93 
 
 policy, "to present to tlie people a constitution free and liberal 
 in its principles.""^ There were those, also, who opposed the 
 prescription of free blacks not only as endangering the admis- 
 sion of the state, but as morally wrong and contrary to the 
 rights of man and the principles of freedom/'- The fear that 
 statehood might be delayed, prevailed, and the immigration 
 law was defeated,*'-' in spite of the defiant words of Semple 
 who preferred "being kept out of the Union to all eternity" to 
 acknowledgeing that Congress could overrule the right to ex- 
 clude free negroes. "I would take my rifle," he said, "and 
 defend that right as freely as I did the flag of the United States 
 when we achieved the right to this territory. "°* 
 
 The year 1850, in Avhich California was admitted to the 
 Union, brings us back to consider three constitutional conven- 
 tions of the Northwest which met that year in the states of 
 IMiehigan, Indiana, and Ohio. 
 
 jMichigan, 1850 
 
 ^lichigan had been settled mainly by people from New Eng- 
 land and New York, who brought with them a familiarity wdth 
 the negro suifrage question."'' A member of the convention of 
 1850, speaking against striking out the word "white," said 
 that he had voted down the same proposition in the Michigan 
 convention of 1835."" During the whole decade of the forties, 
 petitions for impartial suffrage provisions kept appearing in 
 the Legislature. The number was greatest in 1846, and de- 
 creased in the last few years before 1850."^ The j^ear after the 
 report of the committee to the Iowa constitutional convention 
 
 "7eK/., p. i40. Dimmick. p. 150. Gilbert, p. 330 Norton. 
 
 «-/b(V/., p. Hf), (Jilbert, p. 14-1, Shannon. 
 
 "■■■Ibid., p. 332, vote 39 to 8. 
 
 "Kntid., p. 332 ; see Thorpe. Constitutional Hii-tonj of the American People, 
 II. 297. 
 
 ''^Thorpe, o/.'. cit.. II.. p. 3.-«3.. Smith, op. cit., 327. 
 
 "^ Michiaan Convention Debates, 1S50., p. 758, McClelland. 
 
 "House Journal. 1840. p. ,330: 1S41. p. 170; 1842. pp. 63. 7."., lOG, 111. 160, 
 161. 213; 1S43, pp. 95, 1.S5. 165, 197, 259. 290: 1844, pp. 14, 32, 42, 
 51. .".7, 66. 74, 89, ',/5, 101. 107, 114. 142, 293, 309; 1846, pp. 21, 26, 38, 43, 
 44. 58, 09, 7.:, 74, 78, 82. 93, 99, 113, 114, 123, 132. 145, 157, 337, 400; 1848 
 p. 200 : 1849 and 1850 apparently none. ISenate Jovrnal. 1842. pp. 83, 89, 104, 
 145; 1843 none; 1844, pp. 10, 198: 1845 pp. 27, 42, 53, 133. 
 
 [93] 
 
94 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 was made, an equally notable document on the other side of 
 the question was produced in Michigan. On March 10, 1845, in 
 the Michigan Senate, Mr. J3enton from the committee on State 
 Affairs, to whom had been referred sundry petitions for strik- 
 ing the word ''white" from the constitution, offered a report 
 on the subject of negro suffrage.*^® The natural rights of man, 
 "the Siamese brotherhood of taxation and representation. . . . 
 the peculiar claims on democracy to carry out its principles," 
 were leading considerations in favor of removing all color dis- 
 tinctions. Denton was a Democrat,'''' fully believed in Jack- 
 sonian principles and carried them to a logical conclusion. "No 
 principle is more dear to pure democracy," he declared, "than 
 the extension of suffrage." He would not agree that negroes 
 were outside the body politic. "We are united as a nation, but 
 by voluntary compact," he explained. "A compact based on 
 man's natural rights binds us into a common people. While 
 these rights and their consequent principles are pracii- 
 calhj respected, our compact will be performed and our 
 union indissoluble." He denounced the "preposterous 
 puerility of making color a qualification for suffrage," 
 and denied that negroes were of inferior race or had 
 weaker intellects than white men. "Neither history nor 
 experience sustains the objection. On the contrary they 
 conclusively refute it. Like other nations Africa had her 
 season of glory. During it she was one of the most powerful 
 nations of the world. Her victorious arms had nearly annihi- 
 lated the Romans. Her black Hannibal will ever be found in 
 the catalogue of the Caesars and Bonapartes." He showed 
 by the experience of other states that negro suffrage would not 
 encourage immigration of free blacks. He denied that the col- 
 ored people would all adhere to the same party. "At present, 
 but one political party advocates, as a party measure, colored 
 suffrage," and it naturally has the sympathy of negroes; but 
 once the right is granted they will divide among all parties. 
 "Public opinion has materially changed on the subject since 
 our constitution was formed. Each year gives evidence of a 
 
 '^Senate Journal, 1845, p. 263. 
 «> Mich. Con. Debates, 1850, p. 287. 
 
 [94] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 95 
 
 growing interest in the topic and in others incident to it. The 
 ballot box of last fall spoke the sentiment of nearly four thou- 
 sand voters. Already the constitutional restriction has been 
 swept away before the rising sentiment, and the colored man 
 was permitted to vote in Detroit, on an election of unprecedent- 
 ed interest, neither party having the hardihood to offer a chal- 
 lenge on the ground of color." Restriction of negro voting 
 by a property qualification would be as objectionable as total 
 disfranchisement, for by it "integrity of principle would be 
 surrendered. ' ' 
 
 Another member of the committee, Abner Pratt, replied in a 
 minority report in which he complained that he had not been 
 given notice that any action was to be taken, and that only a 
 short time was left him to prepare an answer. The substance 
 of his argument Avas, that the effect of negro suffrage would 
 be to till the state ''with fugitive slaves from Missouri, Tennes- 
 see, Kentucky and Virginia," who in a few years might become 
 so numerous that they could elect some of their number to of- 
 fice. The majority of the Senate were in sympathy with these 
 views, and accordingly, by a A'-ote of 9 to 6, the report and the 
 joint resolution were referred back to the committee. ^° The 
 six who voted in the minority were probably Democrats, for 
 the Liberty men were not yet strong enough to elect so large a 
 proportion of the Senate. It could have been no other than 
 the Liberty party that was mentioned as advocating negro suf- 
 frage as a party issue, for the voting strength of nearly four 
 thousand Avas just about the strength of that political organiza- 
 tion in Michigan in 1844.'^i Changing into the Free Soil party, 
 its strength steadily increased, and in 1848 Michigan cast 10,389 
 votes for Van Buren." 
 
 When the constitutional convention met in 1850, the agita- 
 tion for negro suffrage temporarily found a ncAV channel. 
 During the first Aveeks of the session there Avere sent to the con- 
 vention many petitions signed Avith an aggregate of about 
 
 ^0 Documents accompanying the Senate Journal of Micliigan, at the annual 
 session of 1845, No. 1.") ; Sen. Journal, 185, p. 263. 
 ■' Smith, op. cit., p. o25. 
 ■"iMd. 
 
 [95] 
 
96 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 three thousand names."" A member said that the petitioners on 
 this subject numbered six times as many as the petitioners on 
 all other subjects which had come before the convention/* On 
 June 27th came the inevitable motion to strike out the w^ord 
 ' ' white ' ' from the article on elections. ''' Many arguments em- 
 ployed in other conventions appeared in Michigan at this time. 
 The word ' ' white ' ' was indefinite ; no one could tell to what 
 shade of color it applied." Many negroes were good citizens, 
 peaceable, industrious and progressive, and their neighbors 
 spoke well of them. Their apparent inferiority was due to 
 slavery and prejudices of whites. The experiences of New 
 England show^ed that granting them the elective franchise 
 would not cause an influx from the South. Political equality 
 would not bring about social equality. Suffrage extension 
 would be in accord with the principles of democracy, with the 
 ideal of no taxation without representation, and with the doc- 
 trine that "all power is inherent in the people.""^ IMr. Leach 
 said a majority of his constituents must be in favor of removing 
 the discrimination, for they well knew his views when they 
 elected him.'^ Suffrage was a natural right, or. if there was a 
 distinction between natural and conventional privileges, "all 
 men certainly have the same natural right to enjoy those con- 
 ventional rights, because the father of democracy tells us that 
 'all men are created equal.' "''' Disfranchisement would be 
 unrepublican and unjust, "an act destitute of every vestige of 
 honor, unless there is honor in the triumph of the strong over 
 the weak. "^° 
 
 The opponents of negro equality were .quite sure that negroes 
 were inferior and depraved, that they could not permanently 
 dwell together with whites on a plane of equality, that negro 
 suffrage would cause amalgamation and compel associa- 
 
 -■■' Michigan ConvenUon Dehntes, I80O.. pp. .30, 6S. 93, 102, 120, 175, 218, 
 240. 257, 286, 297. from .Time 8 to June 26. 
 '•*lbia., p. 284, Williams. 
 ^'■IMd., p. 284, Orr. 
 '^ Ibid., p. 284, Pierce. 
 
 ■>- lUd., pp. 28.^., 286, 287, 288, 289. Leach, N. Pierce. 
 ■<» Ibid., p. 285. 
 '"Ibid., p. 290, Leach. 
 "ojbid., p. 289. 
 
 [96] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 97 
 
 tion of the races in churches and legislatures. Granting blacks 
 the privileges of electors would attract hordes of them into 
 Michigan, and they would crowd the whites out of the penin- 
 sula. The Declaration of Independence could refer only to 
 white men, for both Jefferson and Washington held slaves. 
 Negroes were more enlightened and happy in America than 
 l)pek in Africa where their lives were at the mercy of blood- 
 thirsty chiefs, or than they would if separated from the whites, 
 and sent away for twenty years to live by themselves. The 
 obligations of justice had been more than satisfied, and the 
 people of 3Iichigan were not bound to be so imprudent as to 
 divide their political authority with negroes, or to let them 
 have a share in piloting the ship of state on which they had 
 been suffered to become passengers. Attempts to secure equal- 
 ity between races that nature had so widely separated, could 
 result only in misery. The true mode of relief would be col- 
 onization : "I believe the African has come here to be edu- 
 cated for a great purpose," said one member more in jest than 
 earnest. "When he shall be raised to a certain state, in com- 
 parison with our own, he will go back to Liberia * * * to 
 Africa * * *' to find the sources of the Nile, which have 
 never been found by those barbarous tribes. "^^ 
 
 The motion to strike out "white" was lost, and then the prop- 
 osition to submit the c|uestion to the people was considered.*^- 
 It was objected that a negro suffrage clause had no chance 
 of being ratified and a submission of it would only create popu- 
 lar excitement about a dangerous question. ^^ In reply, it was 
 said that many people wished to vote on this issue, that it had 
 been agitated in the Legislature for several years, and that a 
 referendum would quiet this agitation.®* An attempt to have 
 negroes included in the basis of representation had failed,®^ 
 another motion to strike out the word "white" was defeated 
 by 46 to 13, ""^ but the resolution which referred the question of 
 
 " Ibifl. 
 
 pp. 287, I'OO. 1201. Bagg. pp. 
 
 280, 
 
 29fl, Fierce 
 
 ^-Jbifl.. 
 
 pp. 296, 2!t7. 
 
 
 
 ^ Ibid.. 
 
 pp. 297. 483. Bagg. 
 
 
 
 »< Ibid.. 
 
 p. 297, }5ush. Kingsley. 
 
 
 
 »i Ibid.. 
 
 p. 29.'>. F.ritian. 
 
 
 
 '^ Jbid., 
 
 p. 758. 
 
 
 
 [97] 
 
98 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 colored suffrage to the people was passed by a vote of 54 
 to 12.«^ 
 
 The convention which took this action was overwhelmingly 
 Democratic, with a few Whig and Free Soil members.^^ The 
 nativity of the members was probably fairly representative oi 
 the origin of Michigan's population. There was only one na- 
 tive of Michigan, while four-fifths of the delegates were born 
 in New York or the New England states. ^'-^ Nearly, all, there- 
 fore, who voted either way on the suffrage question were na- 
 tives of those states, and it is a matter of surprise that the pro- 
 portionate number of delegates in favor of permitting blacks to 
 vote was not only smaller than in New York in 1846, but 
 smaller than in Wisconsin in 1847.^'^ Perhaps this was due to 
 the predominance in the convention of Democrats, among whom 
 the most rabid anti-negro men were found, for the friends of 
 the African made a better showing at the fall election, when 
 the constitution was adopted by 36, 169 to 9,433 and the negro 
 suffrage clause rejected by 32,026 to 12,840.''i 
 
 Indiana, 1850 
 
 The sentiment in Indiana was much less favorable to the 
 negro than in Michigan. The suffrage had been agitated along 
 with other negro questions during the preceding decade, al- 
 though it had not been very prominent in the two or three 
 years preceding the convention.^- In the canvas before the 
 election of delegates to that body, however, negro suffrage was 
 an important issue, and was discussed in all parts of the 
 state.°^ Members of the convention associated the agitation 
 for extension of the elective franchise to colored people, wath 
 the Free Soil party : to them, a Free Soiler was presumptively 
 
 '• IMO., p. 746. 
 
 ^•<lbid., p. 487, Bagg. 
 
 Si* Maine 2, Vermont 8, New Hampshire 4, Massachusetts 13, Connecticut 10, 
 Now York 4o, Tennsylvania 3. New .Jersey 2, North Carolina 1. Virginia 3, 
 Michigan 1, Upper Canada .3, Lower Canada ,4 New Brunswick 1, Ireland 2, 
 Scotland 1. 
 
 ""Ante., pp. 77, 80. 
 
 »' Whig Almanac, 1851., p. 51) . 
 
 "2 Debates in the Indiana Convention, 1850. p. 252, Kilgrave. 
 
 ^^ IMd., p. 2o0. Colfax, p. 233, Foster, p. 235, Rohinson, Blvthe. 
 
 [98] 
 
OLBRICII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 99 
 
 in favor of letting black men vote, although it was pointed out 
 that the same opinions on this question were held by many, per- 
 haps several thousand, members of other political organiza- 
 tions.''^ Estimates of the number who sided with the African 
 on this question, varied from five thousand to ten thousand.®^ 
 This was a small number in the comparatively populous com- 
 monwealth of Indiana, and it is not surprising that there was 
 elected to the convention only one delegate who voted for negro 
 suffrage. 
 
 There were more, however, who were willing to have the peo- 
 ple decide the issue for themselves. On October 23, 1850, Mr. 
 Hawkins presented a resolution to the effect that a majority of 
 the legal voters might, at a general election, provide for univer- 
 sal suffrage. The present constitution, he said, was undoubt- 
 edly a compact or agreement or contract among the white men 
 over twenty-one years old in the state; but they ought to be 
 able, if they ever desired, to admit others into the compact.^' 
 No definite action seems to have taken on this proposition, but, 
 on the 26th, Schuyler Colfax, later Speaker of the House of 
 Representatives in Reconstruction times and Vice-President 
 with Grant, presented another, which differed from that of Mr. 
 Hawkins in providing for just one vote on the negro suffrage 
 question to be taken separately when the constitution should 
 be submitted to the people. °' 
 
 The speakers in favor of this provision nearly all carefully 
 declared that they were themselves opposed to negro suffrage,, 
 although one of them intimated that he might be induced to vote 
 for extending the elective franchise to negroes under property 
 and educational qualifications,^-^ but they argued that permit- 
 ting the people to vote directly on the issue would quiet agita- 
 tion, and would conciliate the Free Soilers who might other- 
 wise oppose the new constitution itself.^" The members of the 
 third party had a right to be heard, for they were people cf 
 worth and character. They were emminently moral and intel- 
 
 »*i6irf., p. 229. 242, Colfax, 2o4, Kilgore. 
 
 "5 Ibid., p. 229, Colfax, p. 251, Edmonston. 
 
 ^'IhicL, p. 172. 
 
 ^■' Ihid., p. 229. 
 
 '•'s Ibid., p. 25.3, Kilgoi-e. 
 
 ^'> Ibid , p. 2o0, Colfax, p. 2ol. Owen. p. 234 Robinson, p. 2.30, Crumbacker., 
 
 [99] 
 
100 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 ligent people, Mr. Robinson declared. "They compose a large 
 portion of the pioneers of this country. They were here im- 
 proving the soil, perhaps, before some gentlemen, who have 
 taken it upon themselves here to denounce them, were located 
 upon it. " " The free-soil party ' ', said Colfax, ' ' number in their 
 ranks as high minded and honorable men as any upon this floor. 
 "From my own knowledge of a great many persons belonging 
 to that party, I can testify for them to their respectability and 
 sterling worth. "^°'' But the majority were not so willing to 
 dally with the idea of negro suffrage, and some opposed it with 
 fierce disgust. Mr. Dobson declared that he wanted "to settle 
 it right, ' ' and moved an amendment providing that unless they 
 were in a majority, "all persons voting for negro suffrage shall 
 themselves be disfranchised." "Whenever you begin to talk 
 about making negroes equal with white men I begin to think 
 about leaving the country."^ Submitting this question to the 
 people would be throwing a firebrand that would keep up the 
 unpleasant "sectional feeling growling out of the slavery ques- 
 tion. ' ' - The state would be ' ' flooded with those lecturers, who 
 would not hesitate to dissolve the Union in order to carry out 
 their principles."^ Mr. Edmonston said: "This threat (that 
 Free Soilers will vote against the constitution) has no terrors 
 for me, so long as the alternative is that I shall agree to submit 
 to the people the question of placing a black negro upon an 
 equality with a white man." On the expediency and justice 
 of negro suffrage itself, tlie usual arguments were advanced: 
 that Africans were ignorant and of an inferior race, that they 
 were better off in America than in their original home, that 
 race differences made political association impossible. "The 
 black race has been marked and condemned to servility; and 
 should feeble man claim to erase from them the leprosy whicli 
 God has placed upon them?"* As in previous conventions, the 
 question of immigration came up with that of suffrage. The 
 majority agreed that free blacks were an undesirable element 
 
 "Mbu/.. p. L';'.4, Uobinson, p. i-!-', Colfax, p. '-'SO, Crumbacker. 
 
 ■Jbid.., pp. 232, 28K. 
 
 - Ibid., p. 2-;5, Robinson, p. 2:57, Peppci'. p. 240. Magnire. p. 240. nrahaiu. 
 
 " IWa., p. 232, Edmonston. 
 
 * Hid., p. 2.'>1, On-on. p. 2:^:', Hobson, p. 2:\~. Hawkins, p. 2.51 Edmonston. 
 
 [100] 
 
.OLBRICO— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 101 
 
 of population aud ought to ])e kept out. The recent measure 
 of Kentucky, to exclude and expel from the state all negroes 
 who were not slaves, were regarded as necessitating drastic ac 
 ticG by Indiana to avoid being overrun by multitudes of colored 
 prcfligates and paupers, and "old, unserviceable, and superan- 
 nuated negroes" who, in the slave states, "are set free, that 
 their masters may not have to support them."' Unless the 
 whites would am^algamate with the blacks, or give up the state 
 to them, they must keep them out and try to be rid of those al- 
 ready in the commonwealth. "They should all be sent to Li- 
 beria or some other part of Africa," said one member. "I be- 
 lieve they have intelligence enough to build up a successful 
 community on the shores of their native Continent, and to gov- 
 ern themselves . . . They can introduce civilization and per- 
 haps do for Africa what the Anglo-Saxon had done for Amer- 
 ica. . . . They will take with them the Bible, and a knowl- 
 edge of our institutions — they will ultimately occupy all that 
 country and become a prosperous and happy people.'^ 
 
 The men of anti-slavery sympathies, although not in favor of 
 letting negroes vote, opposed so harsh a measure as excluding 
 them from the state, filr. Hawkins denounced a proposition 
 "to prohibit the immigration of any portion of God's rational 
 human beings, born on American soil, and under the protec- 
 tion of the stars and stripes, as a greater outrage upon all the 
 principles of our boasted institutions than any other yet pre- 
 sented.'' ]Mr. Kilgore, who thought favorably of restricted 
 negro suffrage,'' denied that negroes were inferior by nature. 
 "Give them the proper training and they will exhibit as much 
 talent as any class of beings upon God's footstool."^ Only one 
 member came out defiantly on the side of the black race. A 
 resolution instructing the committee on elective franchise to 
 report a provision that negroes and mulattoes should be voters 
 at all elections was offered, in order to make a more decisive 
 issue, bv a member who said he himself would vote in the nega- 
 
 '^Jhicl.. p. '1?A. Robinson, p. :j28. Dobson, p. 247. Read of Clark, p. -249, 
 Graham. 
 
 "/fxV/., p. 2:!n, Dobson, pp. 247, Read of Clarl:, pp. 24S, 249, Stevenson. 
 
 ' Ihid., p. 237. 
 
 " Anie.. p. 09. 
 
 ^Debates in 1lic Indiana Consliliilion. 1850. p. 252. 
 
 [101] 
 
102 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSm 
 
 tive.^** It was thought that no one would speak in favor of 
 such a resolution," but Mr. May rose and declared that it was 
 the duty of the Convention: "To give to the negro this right of 
 suffrage under such restrictions as may, after a careful view 
 of the subject, seem most wise and for the best," such, for ex- 
 ample, as were imposed on foreigners. "Either the negro is a 
 man constituted like ourselves by nature, or else he is only an 
 animal— a mere brute. If the negro be but the mere brute— let 
 lis treat him as one in all respects. Let us also efface the divine 
 stamp of immortality and the evidences of manhood from his 
 features, and brand the word 'chattel' upon his brow. But if 
 we decide that the negro is a man — that he has the attributes 
 of humanity — then let us for our sake, if not for his, for con- 
 sistency's sake, ever recognize him as a man and treat him as a 
 man. I shall never shrink from uttering my conviction that 
 there is much timth in the principles of the Free Soil-part3^ I 
 regret to see that there exists here, every disposition to crush 
 every expression of sympathy for the negro race, and I have 
 sometimes fancied I saw a disposition in this hall to crush to 
 the ground every man who ventured to give utterance to such 
 sympathy. "^- 
 
 Mr. May, who represented DeKalb and Steuben counties in 
 the north-eastern corner of the state, Avas the onh^ one who 
 voted for the proposed instructions to the committee ; the vote 
 stood 122 to 1. The proposition of Colfax to submit the ques- 
 tion to the people, was defeated by 62 to 60. ^■" The provision 
 for excluding negroes from the state which was to be referred 
 to the people was carried by a vote of 93 to 40 and ratified at 
 the polls by the voters of the state, although 20,956 ballots 
 were east against it.^* Not content with leaving the color dis- 
 crimination as it stood in the constitution of 1816, which lim- 
 ited the suffrage to "white male citizens" with the proviso that 
 the article should not be construed to disfranchise "citizens of 
 the United States, who were actual residents at the time of 
 
 ^0 Ibid., p. 239, Berry. 
 
 ^^ ima., p. 238. 
 
 '-Ibid., pp 245, 240. 
 
 ^3 Ibid., p. 253. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., 1816-3 7. p. 2077; Smith, op. eit., p. 3:)7. 
 
 [102] 
 
OLP.RTCri— ^EGRO SUFFRAGE 103 
 
 adopting- this constitution, and who, by the existing laws of this 
 Territory, are entitled to vote," the convention left out this 
 obsolete clause and inserted ^. new section: "No negro or 
 mulatto shall have the right of suffrage. "^^ 
 
 Ohio, 1850 
 
 The Ohio convention of 1850-1851 took up the negro question 
 on December 4, 1850, when Mr. Woodbury moved to expunge 
 the word ' ' white ' ' from the suffrage article. Several members 
 spoke vigorously in favor of this motion; the principal speeches 
 were made on February 8, 1851. It would be in accord with 
 the principles that all men are created equal and that just gov- 
 ernments can be founded only on consent, and would cause 
 negroes to become better and more contented citizens. ^*^ Mr. 
 Townshend referred to the blacks as "a portion of the people 
 of this State wlio have the same right to stand upon this part 
 of God's earth, and to breathe this free air that you or I have." 
 He denied that this was the white man's country or that it was 
 just to exclude black men from it ; negroes had lived here as 
 many generations as Caucasians, and had fought for the na- 
 tion's liberty and had received the praises of General Jackson 
 for their valor at New Orleans. ' ' No government, here or else- 
 where, has a right to say who shall or who shall not live in any 
 part of the wide world." If the two races cannot live together 
 in peace, why is it so? "I, too, will appeal to history and defy 
 anyone to point out an instance where these conflicts have not 
 grown out of the attempt on the part of one race to oppress 
 the others." He was a Democrat and believed democracy was 
 in accord with the golden rule of Christ. "I see no reason why 
 democracy is not like Christianity, comprehensive enough to 
 embrace the whole family of men." 
 
 The other side had the votes and did not need to make 
 speeches; but one of their number urged that negro suffrage 
 "would necessarily inflame the antipathies now existing be- 
 tween the two races. We may say that these antipathies are 
 
 15 Poore, I., pp. 497, 514. 
 
 i«0?iio Convention Reports, 1850-51., I., p. 679, Woodbury; II.. p. 1178 
 Townsend; p. 117!), Hitchcock, p. 1181. Woodbury. 
 
 [103] 
 
104 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
 wrong, niichrisliaii; but foul words will not do away with 
 facts." Another, utterly denied that blacks had the same 
 rights as white men in this country. "At the same time I ad- 
 here to the motto of 'equal rights to all, exclusive privileges 
 to none,' I am willing that the colored race should be col- 
 onized."^' The anti-slavery men admitted that public senti- 
 ment would prevent many members from voting for equal suf- 
 frage against the will of their constituents, and reproachfully 
 compared the close vote in the convention of 1802 with the 
 present overwhelming m.ajority against the negro. ^^ The mo- 
 tion to strike out "white" was defeated, 66 to 12. Although 
 there w^ere thirty natives of Ohio in the convention, only one of 
 them voted for negro suffrage. One of the twelve was a native 
 of Pennsylvania, one of England, three of New York and six 
 of New England. All of them were representatives of North- 
 eastern counties in the region of the Western Reserve, then the 
 principal Free Soil area of the state.^'' 
 
 The colored people themselves, encouraged by the anti-slavery 
 agitation, soon took up the question and began to press their 
 demands for equal suffrage. In 1854, a state convention of 
 negroes appointed one of their number, a mulatto named J. 
 Mercer Langston, to draw up a memorial for equal suffrage to 
 the legislature. The memorial, which was presented to the 
 general assembly on April 19, 1854, set forth that negroes were 
 men and as men had rights, and that "it is unjust, anti-demo- 
 cratic, impolitic, and ungenerous to withhold from us the right 
 of suffrage." It was adopted in the Senate as part of the 
 report of the committee, w^hich submitted a bill in accordance 
 with the request. Most notable of all, it w^as accompanied by a 
 letter from William H. Seward, dated May 16, 1850, in which 
 he expressed his opinion that no citizens of New York voted 
 more conscientiously than the free negroes and his hope that 
 the elective franchise would soon be extended "to this race, 
 
 "Ibid., TL, p. nso. Sawyer. Nash. 
 
 ^^ lUd., II., pp. 1180. 1181, riumphrevilio. Woodbury. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., II.. p. l!82. The nativity of tlie convention was: Connecticut 10, 
 New Hampshire 2, Massachusetts 5, Vermont 3, New Yorlr 9, New Jersey 1, 
 Pennsylvania 25. Ohio oO. Delaware 1, Washington D. C, 1, Georgia 1, Ken- 
 tucky :!. Virginia 8, Maryland 4, Tennessee 1, Ireland 1, England 2, Germany 1, 
 Ibid., I., XXVI-XXVIl. 
 
 [104] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 105 
 
 who of all others need it most." The writer of the memorial, 
 I\[r Langston, stated that he had been elected clerk of a town- 
 ship in which he was the only colored resident, that the like had 
 never been known in Ohio before, and that his election proved 
 "tlie steady march of anti-slavery sentiment."-*' 
 
 Negro Suffrage in Relation to P.vrty and Race 
 
 The intimate connection between the Liberty and Free Soil 
 pai'ties and the sentiment for negro suffrage is certain; the 
 enemies of negro equality alM^ays charged or assumed that Lib- 
 erty men and Free Soilers and Abolitionists were in favor of 
 it : the votes for Free Soil candidates and for negro suffrage 
 were numerous in the same areas and were approximately 
 equal in number. For example, the Free Soil vote of Wiscon- 
 sin in 1848 was 10,418, while a year and a half before the vote 
 for negro suffrage had been 7,664; the Free Soil vote of Michi- 
 gan in 1848 was 10,389 while the vote for negro suffrage in 
 1850 was 12,046; the vote for negro suffrage in Connecticut 
 in 1846 was 5,616; for Van Buren in 1848, it was 5,005. The 
 same New York Counties which gave majorities for equal 
 suffrage in 1846, gave large votes for Van Buren in 1848. The 
 northern counties of Illinois and the northeastern counties of 
 Ohio, from which delegates favorable to abrogation of color dis- 
 tinctions, and the eastern counties of Wisconsin where the vote 
 for negro suffrage was heaviest, were all regions of Free Soil 
 strength ; while in Michigan, both the vote for colored suffrage, 
 and the Free Soil vote, were evenly distributed throughout the 
 state.-^ In the various state convention there were many na- 
 tives of NeAv York and New England who voted against giving 
 Africans the elective franchise, but there were almost no na- 
 tives of any other regions who voted for it. Up to 1850, at 
 least, the votes for negro suffrage and for Free Soil candidates 
 are accountable as due mainly to the presence of New England 
 or New York elements in the population, or to the work of 
 New England Abolitionists and anti-slavery agitators, al- 
 
 -' Noll. Volnrrd Patriots, ptc. pp. ^{."G-.'M 1 . 
 
 -1 Smith, op. c!t.. pp. .1:^.7, 325, 326; Whig Ahiianac. 1849, pp. 54, 64; Ante, 
 
 [105] 
 
106 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 though in Indiana and Iowa the Quakers added their strength 
 on the same side. Since these forces were stronger in the 
 northern than in the southern parts of the old Northwest, it is 
 natural to find that there were proportionately more Free 
 Soilers and champions of negro equality in Wisconsin, Michi- 
 gan and Northern Ohio than in Illinois, Indiana and southern 
 Ohio. Still more significant of the difference between the two 
 parts of the Northwest area is the character of the opposition 
 to negro suffrage, which was far more aggressive, determined 
 and scornful in the south than in the north of this region. In 
 the three southern states the question was not even submitted 
 to the people, while in Michigan and "Wisconsin it was. It is 
 notable that frequently the men who would not vote for negro 
 rights themselves, but favored submission of the matter to pop- 
 ular arbitrament, seemed eager to testify to the intelligence and 
 eminent respectability of Free Soilers and others who were on 
 the side of permitting colored men to vote."- Such men were not 
 beyond all persuasion; it seems fully warrantable to say that 
 in the northern part as compared with the southern part of the 
 Northwest, there were many more people who were approach- 
 ing or were at the point of conversion to negro suffrage. The 
 course of events from 1850 to 1857, the next important year in 
 the history of negro suffrage, was favorable to such conversion ; 
 for during that time anti-slavery feeling grew apace, and the 
 Kansas-Nebraska struggle, the Dred Scot case and the suc- 
 cessful launching of the Republican party were amoug the 
 intervening occurrences. 
 
 ■Ante., pp. 80, 87. 100. 
 
 [106] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 107 
 
 CHAPTER V • 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY AND NEGRO SUFFRAGE, 
 
 1857 to 1860 
 
 Iowa, 1857 
 
 In the state of Iowa these things had brought great change, 
 and there was a great diiiference between the situation in 1844 
 and 1846, and that in 1857 when the third constitutional con- 
 vention assembled at Des iMoines. The Kansas-Nebraska con- 
 troversy brougbt about the defeat of the Democratic party in 
 1854, after it had ruled the state from its beginning.^ One- 
 third of that triumphant phalanx had deserted and, together 
 with the Free Soilers and Whigs, had formed the Republican 
 party.- In the election of delegates to the convention of 1857, 
 the negro suffrage was agitated in some communities,^ and it 
 was known that many people Avere in favor of equal political 
 rights to white men and blacks. The suffrage issue did not 
 come to a direct vote in the convention, although several peti- 
 tions against disfranchisement on account of color were re- 
 ceived ;■* but on January 26, there was introduced a resolution 
 that the committee on suffrage be instructed to inquire into the 
 expediency of submitting the question to the vote of the peo- 
 ple, and on February 23, a select committee reported a recom- 
 mendation that the people be permitted to vote directly on the 
 question of expunging "white" from the constitution.^ A 
 minority report was presented, to the effect that the state of 
 public sentiment was not a matter of doubt, and that the only 
 result of throwing this question into politics, would be "to 
 
 ' loiva Constitutional Ddiates, 11.57. II., p. 677, Clarke of Henry. 
 
 - Ibut.^ II., p. 672, Marvin. 
 
 " Ihid., II., p. 67.". Ells; p. 680, Gower. 
 
 ♦ !bi(t., pp. 11.5, ;J16. 
 
 ^ IbirL, 1., p. 45., II., p. G4!>. 
 
 [107] 
 
108 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 furnish material and food for morbid and forbidding senti- 
 nient.*^ The minority further presented, as containing their 
 views, the report on negro suffrage made to the convention of 
 1844.^ The views of this docum.ent were derided by the Repub- 
 licans. HoAv could tlie degraded African, as he was called, 
 ever control the lofty Saxon ? How can a race said to be so 
 ignorant, control the ballot-box and absorb the powers of gov- 
 ernment? The argument of the report implies that, "our sisters 
 and our daughters will refuse the alliance of this boasted, this 
 superior Anglo-Saxon race, and seek husbands among this 
 black race ; and our brothers and our sons will turn their backs 
 upon the daughters of the daughters of the Anglo-Saxon, and 
 go to the dusky-browed daughters of the descendants of Ham 
 for their conjugal consorts."^ What danger is there that 
 negroes will be elected to office? "The negro man who could 
 get elected to any office — -must needs be a very Christ in ebony. 
 Do the people need anything to prevent such a casualty, except 
 their own prejudices and their destestation of the black race?"° 
 The idea that the privilege of voting would attract free negroes 
 into the state was regarded as preposterous. The climate and 
 other conditions would keep them out of Iowa as out of New 
 England.^" 
 
 These practical admissions of prejudice were confirmed by 
 direct statements, but prejudice w^as not to be W'eighed against 
 principle. "I acknowledge with something akin to shame," said 
 Clarke of Henry, ' ' a great repugnance against that injured and 
 degraded race, the African. But — in spite of that feeling 
 which leads me to cry out at times, 'would to God I had the 
 power to transport every one of African descent back to the 
 continent from which the race originated,' — I throw aside my 
 own feelings and prejudices, and say, let us unite together and 
 do right, whatever the consequences— 'let justice prevail 
 though the heavens fall.' Now when gentlemen come to me and 
 are so unkind and ungenerous as to say that I am doing tliis 
 
 ''Ibid., II.. p. (550. 
 
 'Ibid.,, II.. pp. (',50-651; Ante. pp. 102-104. 
 
 ^Jbid., II., p. 6(>.S, Clarko of Alamal:ee. 
 
 »■ Ibid., II., p. 677, Clarke of Henry. 
 
 ^"Ibid., II., pp (i(!7, GG9. 078, Clarl;e of Tlmry. p. 074, EDis. 
 
 [108] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 109 
 
 for ' tlie love of the negro,' I tell them that what I do here in 
 this matter I do from a conscientious love of the principles in 
 Avhich I have been nurtured, and under which I have lived all 
 the days of my life." He had lived in New^ York and had seen 
 colored men vote sometimes for the third party but usually for 
 tlie Whigs, and when counted out, their ballots "looked and 
 counted just the same as those of white folks, and I presume 
 the gentleman from Des I\Ioines could not even have smelled 
 the difference.'"^ ]Mr. Ells said that a strong prejudice 
 against color existed everywhere in the North, stronger than in 
 the South where, he thought, the feeling of repugnance w^as not 
 against the black man's race so much as against his state of 
 slaver3^ There Avere only three hundred negroes in Iowa, and 
 the question of suffrage was therefore not a practical one, "and 
 I am satisfied that were it not for carrying out a consistent rule 
 of right action, that no considerable portion of the people 
 Avould give any attention to the subject. Let us do right and 
 leave the consequences to God and our country."^- j\Ir. Llarvin 
 stated: "I hold the acknowledgement of the equal rights of 
 all men to be a sacred principle — I know there are thousands 
 of persons that think so much of the maintenance of this prin- 
 ciple, that unless it were presented to them in some shape, they 
 could not be induced to vote for the constitution.^^ Ells said 
 that some of his own constituents held similar views, especially 
 the Scotch Covenanters and Presbyterians, although a majority 
 were opposed to negro suffrage. Out of respect to this majority 
 he did not urge the expunging of "white" in the convention, 
 but merely wished to let the people decide. As for himself: "I 
 am perfectly willing that the right of suffrage should be as 
 broad as the universe of Cod. I have no fear in trusting any 
 class of men with the right to vote, provided they have the 
 qualifications of manhood."^* Clarke of Henry, also, had con- 
 stituents who, like himself, would not vote for the new consti- 
 tution unless thy could have an opportunity of voting to wipe 
 
 ^' Jhia., II.. p. nrn. 
 
 '- Ibid.. I., pp. 674. i'tl. 
 ^■'Ihia., II., p. 672. 
 " IMd., II., p. 673. 
 
 [109] 
 
110 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 out the color discrimination.^^ To conciliate those who would 
 maintain principle against prejudice, "though the heavens 
 fall," the question of negro suffrage, it was urged, should be 
 submitted to popular vote. 
 
 The referendum was supported, according to Ells, by every 
 Eepublican except Clarke, of Jolinson,^'' The latter 's reply 
 reveals the other principles of the party at that time. The 
 Republicans, as a party, did not stand for negro suffrage. They 
 w^ere opposed to extension of slavery. They were opposed to 
 all such laws against negroes, as those which prohibited their 
 giving testimony in courts or prevent them from settling in the 
 state. As for the referendum, Clarke declared that he would 
 not submit to the people a proposition which he himself would 
 not support : ' ' No man believes that it can command a respect- 
 able vote in the State. And yet w^e are wasting time in dis- 
 cussing this subject, and creating odium against ourselves, 
 against the constitution, and against the Republican party, 
 upon a question upon which the party has never taken ground, 
 and in favor of which they are not committed."^' 
 
 This speech opened up a long discussion of party history and 
 party doctrine which showed how closely men associated the 
 negro suffrage question with the sectional strife about 
 slavery.^^ What they considered the aggressions of the South, 
 had stirred up their feelings against the wrong of involuntary 
 servitude. They did not intend to take away the master's prop- 
 erty, but they Avould do their best to make it worthless to him 
 by forbidding him to carry it into new territory.^^ They had no 
 right to interfere with slavery w^here it existed, but they "would 
 do it as much indirect injury as the letter of the constitution 
 would permit. "We have no right to interfere with it. But 
 we can raise our voice against it on every occasion. We can 
 refuse, here in the free state of Iowa, to bolster it up by becom- 
 ing its apologists. And so far as we have the power and the 
 
 ^^Ihid., II, 669. 
 
 "/bid., I., p. 675. 
 
 " Ihid., II., pp. 675. 676, also p. GSO, Peters. 
 
 ^^IbUI., II., pp. 681-*J11. 
 
 ^^ JMd., II.. pp. 700, 701, Pauvin. 
 
 [110] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGKO SUFFRAGE 111 
 
 constitutional and legal right, so far should we go against it."-" 
 They did not go so far to say that the constitution was a 
 "league with hell and a covenant with death"; but they were 
 sure that any thing like cheerful fulfilment of certain consti- 
 tutional obligations, such as the return of fugitive slaves, was 
 morally wrong. What we now know to have been the conse- 
 quence of this attitude was pointed out by a Democrat, Mr. 
 Hall, who mourned the good old days when the Whig and 
 Democratic parties were national in extent, dividing between 
 them every county, township or neighborhood. North or South, 
 and contrasted the old order with the existing sectional divi- 
 sion caused by the clash of interests and the clash of moral con- 
 victions. "If this nation is to be brought into conflict, if this 
 universal sentiment which pervades the north, is to be brought 
 into collision with the universal sentiment which exists in the 
 south, then a fig for this union !"-^ It was charged, especially 
 by those Republicans who were apostates from Democracy that, 
 at the dictation of the South, the Democratic party had 
 changed its position on the sl^^very question, and that the South 
 no longer defended slavery as a curse inflicted upon Ham and 
 his descendants but as "right in itself" and upon the ground 
 "that the laboring classes ^properly belong to the capitalists."" 
 In view of these considerations, Mr. Bunker declared that he 
 had changed his mind about the color discrimination and was 
 now in favor of removing it: "I really think that we would 
 suffer more by continuing this word 'white' in the constitu- 
 tion, and we would be in far greater danger of sapping the 
 principles of civil liberty, than we would by allowing the few 
 negroes who may be in the state the privilege of voting at our 
 elections.-^ No doubt the sam.e mental process was reversing 
 the convictions of others. It was pointed out that the opinions 
 of men were making rapid progress, and suggested that the 
 Republicans as a reform party might yet bring the people to a 
 
 ^^ Ibid., II.. p 682, Edwards. 
 -^Ihid., II. pp. 0.^7, 68S, 690. 
 
 ^^-IMd., II., p. 709, Clarke of .Vlamakec, pp. SS9-90], Clarke of Johnson, p. 
 907, Ellis, p. 911. Kunker. 
 ^Ubid., II., p. 911. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
112 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSII? 
 
 most advanced position.-^ In the light of events of tlie subse- 
 quent decade, the words of Mr. Ells were prophetic: "The 
 Republican party of this country, sir, is emphatically a progres- 
 sive party; and any man or set of men who attempt to pre- 
 scribe limits to its political action for all coming time, must set 
 thoir bounds far into the misty future, or they will find them- 
 selves overwhelmed with tlie 'ground swell,' now setting in- 
 land from the mighty ocean of moral truth. That which satis- 
 fies the people today will become obsolete and be cast off to- 
 morrow. The wonderful developments made in the moral and 
 political, as well as the natural sciences, within the last tAventy 
 years, admonishes us to be careful how we cripple ourselves by 
 the adoption of any short sighted policy of political action."-"' 
 The Democrats made an attempt to substitute for the refer- 
 endum provision an article : ' ' No negroes or mulattoes shall 
 come into the State after the adoption of this constitution," 
 but were defeated by a vote of 25 to 8.-" Then by 20 to 13 the 
 convention adopted the resolution which referred to the peo- 
 ple the question of striking "white", from the article on 
 suffrage.-' The nativity of this convention differed but slightly 
 from that of the similar bodies of 1844 and 1846, although 
 there was a somewhat smaller proportion of southern born 
 members than in the convention of 1846 r^ but the relative 
 strength of parties had been just about reversed. This is not 
 the only evidence of how opinions and sentiments had changed ; 
 in 1848 and 1852, the Free Soil vote of Iowa had been less than 
 one-twentieth of the total vote cast at the presidential elections 
 of those years : in August, 1857, the negro suffrage article was 
 supported by probably one-fifth of a total vote that was four 
 times as large as the total vote of 1852.-^ But Iowa was still 
 far from her advancd position of Reconstruction times. 
 
 ^* Ibid., II., p. 67G, Clarke of Johnson. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., II., p. 675. 
 
 ■"Ibift., II., p. yi3. 
 
 "-■< IMd., II., pp. 916, 10!)5. 
 
 =' Maine 2, Massachusetts 1, Connecticut 3, New Yorli 7, Pennsylvania 3, New 
 Jersey 1, Ohio 7, Indiana L', Maryland 1. Virginia 4. Tennessee 1, Kentucky 4, 
 Ihhl., T.. p. 4, Ante., pp. 77, 82. 
 
 -"ir/iiV/ Almanac, 1S49. p. 64; for 1853, p. Q2 ; for 1858, p. 62; James, Johns 
 Hopkin's Historical i^imlics. vol. ?rvin.. ■•>. :•,!--. Mrdison. (Wis.^ Argus and 
 Democrat, September 18, 1857. James says the colored suffrage article waa 
 
 [112] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 113 
 
 Minnesota. 1857 
 
 The events connected "with the framing of the first constitu- 
 tion of Minnesota show clearly the attitude of the two chief 
 political parties in that state. The election of delegates to form 
 a constitution was very close. The Democrats thought at first 
 that they had swept the territory but later the returns showed 
 that the Republicans had elected many of their candidates. 
 Apparently some of the seats in the convention were in dispute, 
 for when the delegates assembled at St. Paul, the fifty-nine 
 Republicans, in order to control the convention, stayed up all 
 night and appropriated the hall in which the convention was to 
 meet, as soon as the doors were opened in the morning. The 
 fifty-two Democrats had proposed to the Republicans to or- 
 ganize the convention at noon, and when they found their op- 
 ponents in possession, they met in a separate convention and 
 drew up another constitution. The difficulty was finally settled 
 by a committee of conference which reported for ratification by 
 the two bodies a constitution substantially the same as the one 
 drawn up in the Democratic convention.'"^ 
 
 The report of the Democratic convention's suffrage commit- 
 tee was read August 12, 1857. It confined the elective franchise 
 to white citizens and civilized Indians. A motion was made to 
 strike out the word "Avhite" before "citizens" on the ground 
 that the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott 
 case, had held that negroes were not citizens, and that there- 
 fore the word "white" was useless; but other members doubted 
 whether the question of negro citizenship had been settled defi- 
 nitely enough to make it safe to leave out the color discrimina- 
 tion. The only other reference to negroes seems to have been 
 
 defeated by 40,000. The total vote for and against the constitution was 
 7;), 27:5. On the basis of the latter figures, the Argus and Democrat estimated 
 That the vote on striking out "white" probably stood 60,000 to 20,000. It is 
 not, however, probable that this article called out so large a vote as 
 the constitution. In the convention a member estimated the probable vote 
 for negro sufirage as low as four or five thousand. DeMtes, II., p. Ofl. Bunker. 
 ■"'Minnesota Convention nel)ates. 18.57, pp. .372, 37.3, Hayden ; Minnesota Con- 
 stitutional Debates, 1S57.. pp. G76 and 1, Reporter's Preface. The former is 
 the record of the proceedings of the Republican convention ; the latter that 
 of the Democrat convention. 
 
 [113] 
 
114 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSII* 
 
 made when the militia article was under discussion. One 
 speaker said that undoubtedly everyone present Avas willing to 
 admit persons of mixed white and Indian blood to the militia, 
 but he would exclude blacks and mulattoes, by providing that 
 the state militia should be composed only of qualified voters."^ 
 In the Republican convention, also, the suffrage article as 
 reported on August 6, contained the word "white". The argu- 
 ments in favor of the motion to expunge the obnoxious dis- 
 crimination were along familiar liues. "All governments among 
 men derive their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
 erned," said Mr. Messer, a native of New Hampshire, "I am 
 not disposed to discuss here whether colored persons are men 
 or not. I believe it is conceded in this body, that an immortal 
 spirit, a human soul, may exist under a black, an olive, or a 
 white skin." "The great object of a constitution should be to 
 protect the weak," said ^Ir. Hudson, a New Yorker, "the great 
 principle involved in the amendment is, equal rights to all men. 
 The opposite is Aristocracy and Monarchy." jNIr. North, who 
 also was born in New York, explained that before the Revolu- 
 tion, it had been customary to insist on the rights of English- 
 men : ' ' But when the philosophers of the Revolution were called 
 upon to base themselves upon principles which would justify 
 their action, they made a platform as broad as the whole human 
 family." A color discrimination would be "an absolute wrong, 
 which we have no right to inflict upon any class of our fellow- 
 men. There is a standard of right eternally fixed, by which 
 all law and law makers are to be tested."^- Astonishment was 
 expressed that men of foreign birth, who had just acquired the 
 right to vote, should sign a report which kept that right from 
 the black man.^^ Colored men, at least the mulattoes, who had 
 in their veins of the best Virginian blood, were certainly as 
 good as the half-breed Indian children of gamblers and whisky 
 sellers, whom it was proposed to enfranchise.^* The prejudice 
 against Africans was not uniform. "This truth is illustrated 
 
 31 Minnesota Constitutional DehateSj pp. 442, 427, 428, 154. 
 "-Minnesota Convention Delates, p. 337, Messer, pp. 342, 343, Hudson, p. 
 350. North. 
 
 ^' Tbi(t., p. rjoO, Mantor. 
 
 ^Ihid., p. 360, North, p. 341, Foster. 
 
 [114] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO ^SUFFRAGE 115 
 
 by tlie manner in which children of both races play together 
 in the earlier years of infancy. This prejudice is not developed 
 until they are taught tliat there is a social inequality." The 
 convention should take the initiative and lead public opinion 
 on the question of giving negroes their just rights.^^ It was 
 urged that colored men had fought in the battles for independ- 
 ence, and in the war of 1812, and that before and after the 
 victory of New Orleans, General Jackson had praise.d the cour- 
 age of the negro: "His blood equally with that of the w^hite 
 man enriches the soil of our common country."^'' On the men 
 who advanced these arguments, Mr. Galbraith, a native of 
 Pennsylvania, made this comment: "They — declare that a 
 man's highest state of happiness is in his right to vote. They 
 seem to assume that the chief end of man is voting. They argue, 
 and put their whole stress upon it, that the negro should vote at 
 all hazards." He continued to the effect that negroes could 
 not be assimilated : ' ' Gentlemen may cry out in their affection 
 for the poor degraded African what they please, yet he remains 
 among us without friends. The seal of degradation is upon the 
 poor downtrodden African, and years and ages must pass be- 
 fore the seal can be removed. "''' 
 
 The motion to strike out "white" was defeated by a vote of 
 34 to 17.^^ But this vote did not indicate that only seventeen 
 members were in favor of negro suffrage : seven others declared 
 themselves in favor of removing the color distinction, but did 
 not vote for the motion either because they had been absent or 
 because the people would not sustain them.^^ One member 
 estimated that only one-tenth of the convention were opposed 
 to negro suft'rage from conviction, and another said that the 
 question had been considered in a caucus of the members of 
 the convention, and that not more than six had been opposed 
 on principle to giving negroes the elective franchise.*" It was, 
 however, feared that the constitution would be rejected at the 
 
 25 Ibid., p. 371. Perkins. 
 
 3^ Ibid., p. o.'17, Messer, pp. 355, 356, North. 
 ''^ Ibid., pp. 343, 344. 
 ^Ibid., p. 366. 
 
 3" Ibid., p. 341, Foster, p. :3G4. P.alcombe. p. 303 Hudson, p. 395, Bittings, 
 394. Robbins, p. 3!)8. Aja Coombs. 
 *" Ibid., p. 305, Baleombe, p. 301, North. 
 
 [115] 
 
116 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 polls, if the word "white'' should he eliminated, and it was 
 urged that the matter of gravest immediate concern A^as to 
 help restrict the expansion of slavery by sending anti-slavery 
 Senators and representatives to Congress.*^ "I do not be- 
 lieve," said Foster, "the people are quite up to the highest 
 mark of principle : the force of prejudice is yet so strong 
 among them. . . A great contest is going on between the antagon- 
 istic powers of slaveiy and freedom, for the plains of the We'st. 
 ... If we go to Congress with two Senators upon the floor of the 
 Senate and our members in the House, all upon the side of free- 
 dom, we accomplish more for the cause of freedom — freedom 
 for the white and freedom for the black — than we should be 
 engaging here in a vain contest upon an abstraction." It was 
 agreed, however, that there were many people in the territory 
 opposed to the color discrimination and that it would be safest 
 to conciliate them by submitting the question of striking out 
 "white" to popular vote.'- An appropriate resolution was ac- 
 cordingly adopted but was lost in the conference with the 
 Democratic convention.*' It is apparent, therefore, that a very 
 considerable element of the Republican party in IMinnesota de- 
 sired to expunge all color discriminations from the text of the 
 state constitution, and that already, on this question, the politi- 
 cians were in advance of the people. In this as in other con- 
 ventions, the liberal sentiment on negro questions was in large 
 measure due to the potent influence of New York and the New 
 England States: thirty-seven of the fifty-nine members of the 
 convention and fifteen of the seventeen who voted to strike out 
 the word "white" were natives of those commonwealths.''* 
 
 *'• Ibid., p. o(i.5, Balcombe. p. :!04, Robbins. pp. 341. .'ifiS, Foster. 
 
 *^lbkl., p. .338, Messer, p. .*}61, North, p. 360, p. 360, Wilson, p. :!04. Robbins, p. 
 400, Cleghtern. 
 
 *- Ibia., p. 572 . 
 
 "The nativity of the convention was: New York 11. Maine 4, Massachusetts 
 5, Vermont 5, New Hampshire 10. Rhode Island 1, Ohio 4, Pennsylvania 6, 
 New Jersey 1, Indiana 1. North Carolina 1, Virginia 2, England 1, Ireland 1, 
 Scotland 1, Germany 1, Prussia 1, Sweden 1, Canada 1 ; of those who voted 
 to expunge "white" : New Y'ork 5, New Hampshire 5. Massachusetts 3, Vermont 
 1, Maine 1, North Carolina 1. J^cotland 1. 
 
 [116] 
 
OI.BRICII— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 117 
 
 Wisconsin, 1857 
 
 The year 1857 also saw the negro suffrage question submitted 
 a third time to the voters of Wisconsin. In accordance with 
 the power granted to the Legislature by the constitution of 1848, 
 a bill was introduced in the Senate, January 21, 1857 to provide 
 for a popular vote on extending the suffrage to colored persons, 
 A committee reported, a week later, that it was doubtful 
 whether the vote of 1849 on the same question had not con- 
 ferred the elective franchise on negroes, and that it was inex- 
 pedient to take another popular vote until the legal effect of 
 the former one should have been judicially determined ; but the 
 bill was nevertheless passed by a vote of 15 to 5.*^ The Assem- 
 bly committee, on jMarcli 2, proposed an amendment providing 
 that the question of woman suffrage should also be submitted 
 to the people, and made a long report. The Assembly imme- 
 diately adopted the amendment by a vote of 41 to 29 and 
 passed the bill, 40 to 33, but on the next day receded from the 
 amendment and left the bill in its original form.*® The report 
 signed by David Noggle and J. T. Mills discusses both the ques- 
 tion of the negro suffrage and that of woman's suffrage. With 
 reference to the former the committee denounced: "the bar- 
 barous and unmanly dogma that human rights are qualities of 
 color." They adverted to the difficulty of deciding who were 
 white persons, and proceeded in a spirit of the most expansive 
 liberality: "Tlie Holy Bible tells us the diversity of tongues 
 in the early ages, repelled the tribes of mankind from each 
 other, and snapped tlie fraternal band of unity ; but the steam- 
 ship verifying the strange prediction that there shall be no 
 more sea; the railroad trains traversing the girdle of the earth 
 like new formed satellites ; the submarine telegraph that fills 
 the deep with the consciousness of human thought — prove that 
 the period of clannish prejudice, of national animosities, of re- 
 ligious bigotry, of cutaneous aristocracy is passing aAvay. 
 There may be fossil men among the active living masses of the 
 
 *5 Wisconsin Senate Journal, 1857, pp. .59. 115, 197. 
 *« Assembly Journal, 1857, pp. 711, 712, 751. 
 
 [117] 
 
118 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 present time, stubborn conglomerates of obsolete ideas, drifted, 
 and rolled like lost stones in the path-way of human progress ; 
 but it is a blunder of destiny that some men are born in an age 
 to which their natures are not adapted. Eagle-eyed science 
 does not recognize the distinctions of color. In her temple the 
 swarthy Euclid stands by the side of the pale browed Newton. 
 * * * Let him who glories in the fairness of his hide, quarrel 
 with a taDow candle as to which is the whiter, and therefore 
 the most noble. The present earnest and active age has no 
 time to settle the magnificent contest. But who is excluded on 
 account of color by our constitution? Is the Chinese, the 
 Spaniard, the Moor, the Hindoo, the Turk, or ail of them ex- 
 cluded? Intercourse has brought, and will continue to bring 
 in increasing numbers, emigrants from all these countries to 
 our shores. If it is the African blood we prescribe, does the 
 •constitution apply to emigrants from all nations of Africa? If 
 the negro is the Amalek of our antipathy, who shall tell us how 
 much of the accursed blood is sufficient to expel him, like the 
 leper, from the body politic?"*" 
 
 The ciuestion of suffrage extension was much more prominent 
 In the political controversy preceding the fall election than it 
 Iiad been in 1846 and 1849. The Democratic party was unequiv- 
 ocally opposed to giving black men the privileges of whites. 
 On July 10, the Madison Argus and Democi-at, discussed the 
 Declaration of Independence, recalled that Washington held 
 slaves, and concluded that the declaration had no reference to 
 negroes. Later the whole Democratic press assaulted Gover- 
 nor Bashford because he had appointed a colored man to the 
 office of notary public, and when the Democratic state conven- 
 tion met, they announced their position on the suffrage issue in 
 a resolution: "That Ave are unalterably opposed to the exten- 
 sion of the right of suffrage to the negro race, and will never 
 consent that the odious doctrine of negro equality shall find a 
 place upon the statute books of Wisconsin."^* It was a safe 
 issue for the Democrats, and they did not fear to define their 
 position. They argued that it involved the questions: "Shall 
 
 ^''Appendix to Asseniblii Journal, 1857. vol. II., nest to last document. 
 "Madison Argus and Democrat, July 10, August 1. and September 5, 1857. 
 
 [118] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 119 
 
 negroes be admitted to the social circles, to our tables and fire- 
 sides? Shall negroes marry our sisters and daughters, and 
 smutty wenches be married by our brothers and sons? Shall 
 we amalgamate?" They denounced negro equality as "odious, 
 unnatural and wrong," attacked ]\Ir. ]\lcrdynn, a candidate for 
 the office of superintendent of schools because he' would have 
 white children "placed side by side on the seats of the school 
 room, and taught in the same classes with the descendents of 
 blackamoors and Hottentots," and opposed negro suffrage 
 ' ' because it is a scheme to bring the white race down to the level 
 of the negro, because political equality must necessarily lead to 
 social equality of the races, because negro suffrage and amalga- 
 tion go hand in hand.""*^ 
 
 The position of the Republican party on the negro suffrage 
 question was not so unmistakable. It was the Republicans 
 who submitted the issue to the people, and during the summer 
 of 1857, most of their newspapers argued for equality at the 
 baUot-box. Yet it must have been evident that the voters of 
 the state would never ratify the proposed extension of suffrage 
 to the African race. The crushing defeat of the similar meas- 
 ure at the August election in Towa warned the politicians as to 
 the real state of public sentiment. AVhen the Republican partj' 
 convention assembled early in September, it disposed of the 
 suffrage ciuestion by an ambigious resolution: "That we are 
 utterly hostile to the proscription of any man on account of 
 birthplace, religion or color." Under the circumstances, even 
 this was bold language, and according to the Argus and Demo- 
 crat, probably would not have been adopted but for the insist- 
 tence of Sherman Booth, "and his old abolition guard." Many 
 of the prominent Republican newspapers, however, including 
 the Berlin Coiirant, the Omro Eepuhlican, the Fond du Lac 
 CommoniveaWi , the River Falls Journal, the Racine Advocate, 
 the Columbus Jonrnal, the Virociua Times, the Oshkosh Demo- 
 crat, and the Milwaukee Sentinel, continued somewhat mildly 
 
 *' IWd., Aug. 1, Aug. o, Sept. 11. The Weekly (Madison) Wisconsin Patriot, 
 Aug. 15' and Sept. 12. To bear out the last charge, the Argus and Democrat 
 refers with indignation to a case in Kenosha of marriage between a white 
 woman and a negro. 
 
 [119] 
 
120 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 to advocate negro suffrage and insisted that the Republican 
 platform had endorsed it. Booth in his Free Democrat, as- 
 serted that the platform "does contain the free suffrage, in 
 claiming equal rights for all without regard to color," and 
 "that this must be construed as an expression of sympathy on 
 the part of the Convention, with the proposed extension of suf- 
 frage" and "that it is to that extent an endorsement of the 
 measure." The Berlin Courant, predicted: "Just as sure as this 
 measure of justice is denied by the Republicans, just so sure is 
 the death warrant of our party sealed;" and the Fond du Lac 
 CommoniveaWi, hoped that "the party is not so hypocritical as 
 to spurn this doctrine." Byrd Parker, a colored man, and 
 others of his race, and also a number of white lecturers, made 
 speeches to secure votes for equal suffrage and were heartily 
 endorsed and praised by several Republican newspapers. Other 
 papers, like the Grant County Herald, came out in opposition 
 to negro equality, and others still avoided the question. The 
 Fond du Lac Commonwealth, rebuked the Madison State Jour- 
 nal for its "cowardly talk" on the subject. The rebuke w^as 
 deserved: in stating "the issues of the campaign" on August 
 29, the Jovrnal did not mention the negro question: on Septem- 
 ber 4, after the convention of the Republicans had met, it de- 
 clared that "the platform is a noble one," and that "its planks 
 are every one of them sound ;" on September 7, it objected to the 
 assertion of the Argus and Democrat "that color is a ground for 
 proscription, so far as the rights of suffrage and social equality 
 go ; " but it never ventured an unqualified advocacy of negro 
 suffrage. The Argun and Democrat charged that the Republi- 
 cans had abandoned their issues, and declared that negro suf- 
 frage had "not a friend to support it as a political measure," 
 and that "a Republican convention dare not endorse it, or a 
 Republican candidate go before the people upon it." The 
 editor of this journal, nevertheless, felt aggrieved that the Re- 
 publicans had not insured Democratic victory by adopting a 
 fatally unpopular principle, and in the same issue, September 
 11, he proclaimed: "The Republican party now^ proposes to 
 confer the right of suffrage and the sacred franchises of citi- 
 zenship upon the black race, which w^ould render them eligible 
 
 [120] 
 
OLBRICn— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 121 
 
 to the highest offices in the State, and be the first step for their 
 admission to social equality." Later, October 1, he adduced 
 the fact that "not a leading Republican paper in the State has 
 uttered a solitary word against the negro suffrage plank in the 
 Republican platform," as evidence that the Republican party 
 was identified with negro equality. The people refused to take 
 that view of the situation; in November, Alexander Randall, 
 the Republican candidate was elected by a bare majority in a 
 total vote of about 90,000; but the proposition to extend the 
 elective franchise to colored persons, on which there was cast a 
 total of 67,656 votes, was defeated by 40,106 to 27,550. It is 
 significant, however, that over half the Republican party voted 
 for colored suffrage, that seventeen counties gave majorities 
 for it, and that in some of them, notably Walworth, Racine, 
 Waukesha, Calumet, Winnebago and Fond du Lac, almost the 
 entire Republican vote was cast for it.''° 
 
 Oregon, 1857 
 
 In the far West, there was probably no more demand for 
 negro suffrage, than there had been in the California conven- 
 tion of 1849. In 1857, Oregon adopted her first constitution, 
 with the usual color discrimination in the suffrage article, and 
 submitted to the people along with the constitution, the separate 
 questions of slavery and of the immigration of free negroes. 
 The voters ratified the constitution by 5710 to 2184, the article 
 forbidding slavery by 6361 to 1382, and the article forbid- 
 ding the immigration of free blacks by 5479 to 651. In 
 the older states the friends of the negro were nearly always 
 able to secure repeal, or the defeat, of laws restricting immi- 
 gration, long before they could bring about the adoption of 
 impartial suffrage. It is, therefore, a safe assumption that, in 
 1857, there was in Oregon, practically no sentiment whatever 
 in favor of granting electoral privileges to negroes. ^^ 
 
 ""The Wisconsin Jrij,is and Democral, .Tuly 21, August 1.3. Sept. 5, 10. 11, 
 14, 16, October 1 ; The Madison State Journal, August 29, September 4, 7 ; 
 Whig Almanac 1858, pp. 62, 63. 
 
 ^^ Journal of the Orec/on Constitutional Convention^ 1857, pp. 58, 59, 60, 86.; 
 wmr/ Almanac, 1858. p. 63. 
 
 [121] 
 
122 BULLETIN OF THE UMVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 Deed Scott Decision and Citizenship in New England 
 
 In the extreme East was to be found nearly the exact antith- 
 esis in popular feeling on negro questions. The development 
 of New England's attitude on the suffrage is not easy to trace. 
 Maine refused to adopt a color discrimination in the convention 
 of 1820-1821, which discussed other phases of the voting privi- 
 lege, but did not refer to a color qualification, and accepted with- 
 out question a suffrage article from which the color distinction 
 was absent." In Rhode Island, negroes were expressly dis- 
 franchised b}'- the Dorr psewcZo-constitution of 1841, but not by 
 the instrument adopted in 1842.'^^ An attempt in Connecticut, 
 in 1846, to strike out the word "white" which had been adopt- 
 ed in 1818,°^ was overw^helmingly defeated.'^^ In the Penn- 
 sylvania convention of 1837-1838, one member said he had 
 heard of a colored justice of the peace in Maine.'^^*' Chan- 
 cellor Kent, in the 1848 edition of his commentaries, the 
 last one that could have been revised by liimself, retained 
 the statement that in no part of the country except Maine, 
 did free colored persons, "in point of fact, participate 
 equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political 
 rights. "°" It may be that in some instances, negroes were 
 excluded from the ballot box on the ground, that, as some 
 courts held, they were not citizens,^* and it cannot be doubted 
 that the race prejudices against negroes persisted even in 
 New England. 
 
 In the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853, an 
 attempt was made to secure a provision that colored men 
 should be admitted to the militia, and probably would have 
 succeeded if there had been a state militia distinct from the 
 national militia in which the Federal statutes included none but 
 white men. In the discussions of this question, a member said : 
 "We know that so far as colored citizens are concerned, there 
 
 ^'' Ante, pp. 25. 
 
 s" Anie, p. T2. 
 
 ^*^nte, p. 24. 
 
 '^■■Ante, p. 78. 
 
 "" Fa. Von. Debates., V., p. 451, Maclay. 
 
 5' Kent's Commentaries, TI., p. 258; Weeks, Pol. Sci. Quar. IX., p. 679. 
 
 "^IbUl., p. 677. 
 
 [122] 
 
OLBRICn— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 123 
 
 is a repugnance Avhieli * * * it would be difficult to get over 
 among the soldiers of our companies.""''* 
 
 It was, however, not considered necessary to give negroes 
 civil or political rights; it was agreed that they already pos, 
 sessed them. One member said: "In fact there is nothing to 
 debar the colored person from receiving all the civil and politi- 
 cal rights that are possessed by every other citizen of Massa- 
 chusetts. That I believe is the fact, and it is one of Avhich 
 Massachusetts may well be proud." Henry Wilson, already 
 prominent as an anti-slavery leader and afterward one of the 
 foremost champions of negro suffrage, said : ' ' The Constitu- 
 tion of the Commonwealth knows no distinction of color or 
 race. A colored man may fill any office in the gift of the peo- 
 ple. A colored man may become the 'supreme magistrate' of 
 ]\Iassachusetts. """^ In the IMinnesota Republican constitutional 
 convention of 1857, Mr. Colburn, who was born in New Hamp- 
 shire said of his native state: "The doctrine of negro suffrage 
 prevailed there, and negroes were permitted to vote," and de- 
 clared that a like situation existed in IMassachusetts."^ 
 
 "What significance, then, is to be attached to the fact that 
 New Hampshire in 1S57, and Vermont in 1858, passed laws that 
 guaranteed the rights of citizenship to negroes? The enact- 
 ment of these statutes has been interpreted to mean that the 
 legislatures were trying to establish the negro's right to vote."- 
 Both statutes contain sections, providing that neither descent 
 from an African, whether slave or not, nor color of the skin, 
 should disqualify anyone from becoming a citizen or deprive 
 any person of a citizen's full privileges. The New Hampshire 
 law, which was passed first, also contains a section, to the effect 
 that the suffrage provisions of the Compiled Statutes should "not 
 be so construed as in any case to deprive any person of color, 
 or of African descent, born within the limits of the United 
 States, and having the other requisite qualifications, from vot- 
 
 '" Massachiiseils Convcnixiti HcixuIn. IST).',. i.. p. 42."'>. II.. pp. 72, 75, 83; 
 III., p. 647. 
 
 <"'lbi(i., II., pp. ?:!, 71). 
 
 '•1 Minnesota Convention Debates, p. .304. 
 
 ''^ Weeks, op. cit.. p. 077. "New Ham)ishire found it nece.s.sai'y in 1857, and 
 Vermont in 1S58, to enact tliat negroes should not be excluded from the ballot." 
 
 [123] 
 
124 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 ing at any election ; but such person shall have and exercise the 
 right of suffrage as fully and lawfully as persons of the white 
 race." These provisions can well be construed as intended to 
 apply especially to escaped slaves or their descendants, and 
 such a construction is in accord with the general purpose of 
 the other sections of the laAv to provide for trial by jury of all 
 colored persons who might be claimed as fugitive slaves, and 
 to hinder the execution of Federal law of ISoO.*^" It may have 
 been that negroes who had recently came into the state from 
 the South were not regarded as lawful voters by the election 
 officers, and that other negroes were occasionally hindered in 
 their exercise of the right to vote. But that, in the New^ Eng- 
 land states where no color discriminations existed, where the 
 anti-slavery men did not find it necessary to agitate the negro 
 suffrage question in state constitutional conventions, and 
 whence came the abolition orators to the West, negroes were 
 generally kept away from the ballot box, is inconceivable in 
 view of the situation in other states where negro voting -was 
 illegal. 
 
 In spite of the law, colored men voted in Detroit, Michigan, 
 as early as 1814, neither political party making objection.*'^ 
 Fourteen years ago (1906) it was said: "Almost any old citizen 
 of Wisconsin can cite instances where colored men, although 
 not legally entitled to vote, voted regularly ; and a Milwaukee 
 newspaper a few months ago, recorded the death of a negro 
 who had been on a jury before the War of Secession.""'^ In 
 Ohio, the State Supreme Court repeatedly held that a person 
 with a preponderance of Caucausian blood was to be legally 
 considered white and if otherwise qualified had the same right 
 to vote as men of pure white blood ; and in 1859 the Court de- 
 clared unconstitutional a law passed April 2, of that year, for- 
 bidding election officers to receive votes from any man with a 
 "visible admixture" of African blood. '^'^ It is entirely cred- 
 
 '^ Ln'ics of Ne)D Hanipsltire, passed .Tune Session 1857. Ch. 1965. Lmcs of 
 Vermont, 1858, pp. 43, 44. 
 
 '■■' Ante, p. 05. 
 
 «■' Baker, op. cit., p. 12. 
 
 ^ Gray v. Ohio, p. 4, Ilommoncl, p. 353 ; Williams v. School Directors, Wright 
 p. 570 ; Jeffries v. Ankennij, Dec. Term, 1842 ; Thacker v. Hawk, vol., II, Ohio, p. 
 
 [124] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 125 
 
 i!)!e that a fiood of mnlattoes poured in, claiming the legal 
 *' whiteness. " and that in strongly Free Soil districts, many col- 
 ored people unlawfully exercised the right of suffrage."' In 
 one instance, already noted, a colored man, w^ho may have been 
 more than half white, was elected a town clerk in Ohio.*"'^ It is 
 probable, therefore, that in New England, where the lavv^ sanc- 
 tioned negro voting, colored persons who had been born there 
 exercised the right of suffrage unquestioned, and it is possible 
 that the statutes passed by New Hampshire and Vermont Avere 
 partly intended to remedy the doubtful position of recent 
 comers. 
 
 The main purpose, however, in passing these laws was to 
 protest against the recent decision of the United; States Su- 
 preme Court in the Dred Scott case. In his message to the New 
 Hampshire legislature, June 4, 1857, Governor Haile deplore*! 
 the grave consequences of the doctrine laid down Iw the nui- 
 jority of the court, that free negroes were not citizens of the 
 United States. "State legislatures have fortunately", he con- 
 tinued, "power to admit to the privileges of citizenship, and to 
 protect those citizens, to whom such privileges are denied 
 under the declared law of the United States. When the highest 
 tribunal in the country declares that citizenship is made to de- 
 pend upon mere color or race, the race prosecuted should have 
 their minds relieved from all doubts concerning their rights 
 under the laws of the State. With this view, and by way of 
 protest against a principle contrary to the spirit of our institu- 
 tions, it may be expedient to declare what is now true, that, 
 under our local law. all men of whatever grade, color or race, 
 if injured, or unjustly deprived of their property or freedom 
 may at least sue for redress and be heard in our courts of jus- 
 tice.' ''" In accordance with this suggestion, the act declaring 
 the rights of colored men was passed by a vote of 184 to 114 
 
 37fi ; Lane, v. Baker et al,, vol., 12, Ohio, 237; CJtam'bers v. Stewart, vol., II., 
 Ohio, p. 3S6 ; Stewart v. Southard, vol., 17, Ohio, p. 402 ; Anderson v. Millikin, 
 9, VritchfleM, p. 568. 
 
 «'' Uenton's report to Midiigan Senate., 1845, Documents, etc., no. 15. 
 
 '''^ Ante, p. 105. 
 
 "^ New Hampshire House Journal, 1857, pp. 55, 56. 
 
 [125] 
 
126 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 in the House,'° and a vote of 6 to 4 in the Senate.^^ The negro 
 question was also raised in the case of a bill for remodelling 
 the state militia from which the House exj)unged the w'ord 
 "white" by a vote of 138 to 126.'- In October of the same 
 year, the Governor of Vermont, Kyland Fletcher, also called 
 attention to the hatefull doctrine of the Dred Scott decision 
 that masters could carry and hold their slaves anywhere in the 
 United States, and the legislature passed resolutions of con- 
 demnation. In October, 1858, the new governor, Hiland Hall, 
 repeated the denunciations of his predecessor at the opening of 
 the session during which the legislature passed a law similar 
 to that of New Hampshire." 
 
 New York, 1857 
 
 iMeanwhile the negro suffrage question had come up again 
 in the State of New York. Several petitions that the question 
 be submitted to the people were sent to the legislature during 
 the session of 1857,^* and in March both houses passed a bill 
 providing for a popular vote at the fall election." However^ 
 perhaps because the Republicans feared the political effects of the 
 certain defeat of the measure, the proposed amendment was not 
 published three months before the elections, as the constitvi- 
 tion required, and no popular vote w^as taken. '^ At the next 
 biennial session in 1859, the legislature passed another bill sub- 
 mitting the issue of negro suffrage to the people at the general 
 election of 1860." In the stress of a momentous campaign, 
 little attention seems to have been given to this minor ques- 
 tion: the New York Tribune, which had championed the cause 
 of the black man in 1846, referred little, if at all, to this matter 
 in the year of Lincoln's election to the Presidency. Neverthe- 
 
 ■'oimd., pp. 299-aOl. 
 
 '•^Journal of the Senate, 1857, p. 137. 
 
 " House Journal, pp. 387, 389 
 
 ''■i Vermont Senate Journal, 1S57. pp. 27, 28, 29; House Journal, 1858. pp. 
 31. 32, 33, 305. 
 
 ■i^ House Journal, pp. 80, 226. 4.33, 636. 656, 757. 
 
 ^ Sen. Journal, pp. 353, 354. The vote in the S^aate was 21 to 5. Hoii-<e 
 Journal, pp. 863. 864. The vote in the House was 75 to 27. 
 
 ™ Wisconsin Argus and Democrat, Sept. 11, 1857. 
 
 •' House Journal, p. 752. 
 
 [326] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 127 
 
 le&?!j the vote on the subject was comparatively large; Lincoln 
 defeated Douglass by 362,646 to 312,510, and the proposed ex- 
 tension of the elective franchise by abolishing the property 
 qualification for colored voters was rejected by 337,984 to 
 197,503.'« 
 
 Relation of the ^Movement to Current Thought and 
 
 Politics 
 
 The negro suffrage agitation before the Civil War was one 
 phase of the most important of ''idealistic political move- 
 ments" in American Ilistory. The beginnings of the abolition 
 movement had accelerated the growth of sectional antagonism 
 between North and South. Political controversy in turn influ- 
 enced men's ideals. The Declaration of Independence became 
 more and more potent in determining the thoughts of men on 
 negro questions, and they began, not only to vote for giving 
 negroes the elective franchise, but actually to treat black men 
 with more consideration. In Illinois, the growth of anti- 
 slavery sentiment in the northern part of the state resulted in 
 opening the schools to black men's children.'^ The Massa- 
 chusetts legislature, in 1843, showed faith in the theory that 
 negroes differed from white men only in the color of the skin 
 by repealing the law which forbade marriage between whites 
 and blacks.^" The belief in freedom and the resentment of 
 southern aggression were also manifested in numerous statutes 
 passed by northern states, especially during the later fifties, to 
 prevent the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws.^^ Thus did 
 humanitarian sentiment and political enmity support and 
 strengthen each other. Perhaps the best index of the progress 
 of humanitarian idealism, is the growth of sentiment in favor 
 of negro suffrage from the Pennsylvania discussions of 1837 
 and 1838 down to the election of Lincoln. The movement to 
 grant political privileges to the black man, almost non-existent 
 in 1840, had sprung up and grown strong in the Northwest 
 
 " TriJjune Almanac, 1870, p. 53. 
 
 ■''Harris. Xegro Serviiudf-. in Illinois, p. 2ol. 
 
 5" Kurd's Latv of Freeilorn ond Bomlaoe, II., p. HO. 
 
 ^^ lUd., II., pp. 32, 85, 40, 50, 51, 47, 140, 142, 119 120, 121. 
 
 [127] 
 
12S BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 until it seemed not far from the point of furnishing a principle 
 of the Republicans in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, had 
 continued to secure converts in New York so that the proportion 
 of voters wiio favored equal suffrage grew from one-sixth in 
 1846 to more than one-fourth in 1860, and in New England, had 
 produced decisive manifestation that the majority of the peo- 
 ple's representatives were anxious to guard against any in- 
 fringement of the black man's rights to vote. There was in- 
 deed a great difference between the negro suffrage question 
 before the war and the negro suffrage question after the war. 
 The question presented to the northern people before 1860 was 
 whether they would show their love of abstract, principle and 
 their feelings against slavery by permitting a small number of 
 colored men, who could not possibly exercise any determining 
 political influence, to come to the polls and deposit paper bal- 
 lots along with the whites. The question presented after the 
 war was whether the North should compel the South to commit 
 the mending of its shattered prosperity to the government of a 
 majority, which had been embittered by the memory of four 
 years of bloodshed, and which was mainly composed of newly 
 emancipated, hopelessly ignorant negro slaves. The revolution 
 in public opinion brought about by the Civil War included 
 almost as great a change of sentiment on negro suffrage as on 
 any other question. But in accounting for the Reconstruction 
 Act of 1867, and for the Fifteenth Amendment, the tendency 
 to ignore minorities ought not to be permitted to hide the fact 
 that before the war began in two such representative states as 
 Wisconsin and New York, the principle of negro political equal- 
 ity had been endorsed by more than half the voters of the vic- 
 torious political party. 
 
 [128] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 129 
 
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 GENERAL WORKS. 
 
 Annals of Congress. 
 
 American Annual Cyclopedia, Appleton, New York. 
 
 Bishop, C. F., History of Elections in the American Colo- 
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 The Conor cssional Glohe. 
 
 Geer. C. M., 7he Louisiana Purchase, in History of North 
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 Hiusdale. B. A., editor, Worls of James Ahram Garfield, 2 
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 Hurd, J. C, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the 
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 Kent, J., Commentaries on American Law, [12th edition, O. 
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 Locke, ]\I. S., Anti-Slavery in America (1619-1808), Rad- 
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 ]\IcKinley, A. E., The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen 
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 IMcPherson, E., Political History of the United States during 
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 The New York Weekly Tnhune, 1846. 
 
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 Niles, H., weekly Register. 
 
 Poore, B. P.. Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial 
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 Rhodes, J. F.. Negro Suffrage and Reconstruction, Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2d Series, 
 Dec, 1904, pp. 465-467. 
 
 Smith, T. C The Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the 
 Northwest, New York, 1897. 
 
 Smith, W. H.. A Political History of Slavery, New York 
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 [129] 
 
130 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 
 
 Statistical Viciv of the Popniation of the United States, 
 
 Washington, 1835. 
 Thorpe, F. N., Constituiional History of the American 
 
 People, 2 vols., New York, 1898. 
 Tribune Almanac, 1870. 
 Weeks, S. B., The History of Negro Suffrage in the South, 
 
 Political Science Quarterly, IX, 673 jffi. 
 Whig Almanac, 1846-1858. 
 fWrightl, Vieu's cf Society and Manners in America, 
 
 London, 1821. 
 
 WORKS ON FEDERAL LEGISLATION. 
 
 Benton, T. H., Abridgement of Debates, 16 vols.. New York, 
 
 1861. 
 United States Statutes at Large, 5 vols., Boston, 1845. 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Report of the Debates in the Convention of California, on 
 the Formation cf the State Constitution, 1849, Wash- 
 ington, 1850. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Journal of the Convention of 1813, printed in 1873, by 
 order of the General Assembly. 
 
 ILLINOIS. 
 
 Fishhack, M. McC, Hlinois Legislation on Slavery and Free 
 Negroes. 1818 to 1865, Transactions of the Illinois State 
 Historical Society, 1904, pp. 414-432. 
 
 Harris, N. D., Negro Servitude in Illinois, Chicago, 1904. 
 
 Illinois Constitutional Convention, 1847, Springfield, 1847. 
 
 Journals of the Senate and House of Illinois, 1847. 
 
 INDIANA. 
 
 Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention 
 for the Revision of the Constitution of the State of 
 Indiana, 1850, [Fowler, H.], Indianapolis, 1850. 
 
 IOWA, 
 
 Shambangh, B. F., History of the Constitution of Iowa, Des 
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 [130] 
 
OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE ISl 
 
 [Shambaugh, B. F., Compiler], Fragments of the Debates 
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134 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 
 
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OLBRICH— NEGRO SUFFRAGE 155 
 
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 [135] 
 
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