XII

RECONSTRUCTION FAILS

FROM 1865 to 1870 the Equal Rights League had a respectable existence. The chief value of this body was that it brought together colored men from different sections and created the committee of colored men stationed in Washington during the winter immediately after the war, pending the fight between Congress and Andrew Johnson and the enactment of the Reconstruction Acts. This fight also paved the way for the framing and passage of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

This law and amendments were followed by the readmission of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. With the elective franchise safeguarded by the presence of the United States Army and the federal statutes there was a revolution in the personnel and political administration of the South. In local and State offices colored men were chosen under the new constitutions. Negro magistrates and police officers in the towns and cities; members of the legislatures by the score; a half a dozen judges, secretaries of state in Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina; and lieutenant governors in Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi. As Members of Congress, there were two Senators, Hiram R. Revels, who filled an unexpired term, and Blanche K. Bruce, the full term of six years from 1875 to 1881, both from Mississippi. Virginia had one colored Member of Congress, John M. Langston, who served one term; North Carolina, John A. Hyman, one term, James E. O'Hara, two terms; Henry P. Cheatham, two terms, and George H. White,

two terms. From South Carolina, Joseph H. Rainey who served in five Congresses, Rev. (later Bishop) Richard H. Cain, in two, Robert C. DeLarge, in one, Alonzo J. Ransier, in one, Thomas E. Miller, one term, Robert Brown Elliott, in two, George W. Murray, in two, Robert Smalls, in five. Georgia had Jefferson Long in part of a term. Florida sent Josiah T. Walls two terms. From Alabama came Jere Haralson, Benjamin S. Turner and James T. Rapier, one term each. Mississippi, John R. Lynch, two terms, and Louisiana, Charles E. Nash, one term.

The withdrawal of the last contingent of United States soldiers from the South during the Administration of President Hayes, and the opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court that the Enforcement Act was unconstitutional, as well as similar opinions as to other Reconstruction Legislation, were followed in 1877 by the collapse of the last reconstructed governments of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana.

Hope was indulged in, nevertheless, that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the National Constitution in the South would be recognized and enforced by local sentiment. In Virginia, the "readjuster" movement led by William Mahone triumphed in 1881 and gave a fair interpretation to the U. S. Constitution, and a combination between the Populists and the Republicans in North Carolina obtained control of the government of this State with a somewhat kindred result. In Alabama a union between the same elements gave promise of the same results. But all these successes were temporary. Beginning with Mississippi in 1890, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana have revised their constitutions so ingeniously that while not violating the letter of the Fifteenth Amendment they have placed the power of admitting to the elective franchise entirely in the hands of local officers. These officers having full discretion have uniformly admitted all white men but disfranchised nearly all colored men, re

gardless of whether they do or do not conform to the State law. Several attempts have been made to have the U. S. Supreme Court rule on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of these revised constitutions. But thus far these attempts have been in vain.

The elective franchise is now quite as much in control of the State as before the Civil War. One of the problems of the twentieth century is either the complete nullification of the war amendments or their enforcement in letter and spirit.

XIII

THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER

1652-1781

As early as 1652 the Negro trained in the Virginia Militia and was found in the French and Indian War. Crispus Attucks, the mulatto, was one of the first to fall March 5, 1770, in the Boston Massacre, in which the first blood of the Revolution was shed. From the very earliest days of the Revolution the free Negro enlisted as a soldier in common with other men. As such he was found in the service of nearly all the colonies.1 Their presence created objection and led to a council of war, held October, 1775, composed of three major generals and six brigadiers, presided over by General George Washington, in which any further Negro enlistments were unanimously condemned. Ten days later this action was approved by a conference participated in by Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Washington, and the deputy governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The British took advantage of this policy of the Revolutionists, and Lord Dunmore, in a proclamation dated November 7, 1775, offered freedom and equal pay to all slaves who would join their army. Before the year closed, in fact on December 30, 1775, Washington issued orders authorizing the enlistment of free Negroes as soldiers, and as such they continued until the close of the war.

The connection of the Negro soldier in the Continental Army was not without incident. Some achieved honorable mention

1 Arnold's History State of R. I, p. 428.