Meantime, under the “Reconstruction Acts,” the amendment was forced on the South. Seven of the Southern States ratified it by the Negro vote, the whites being generally disfranchised, while in three of them—Virginia, Mississippi and Texas—ratification was assented to as a condition of readmission to the Union. _Ib._ See also Eckenrode’s “Reconstruction in Virginia,” Johns Hopkins Press, 1904. [53] For such an instance, see Dr. H. M. Field’s “Sunny Skies and Dark Shadows.” [54] 1 Cr. 137; 118 U. S. Rep. 142. [55] For example, in 1880 the vote of North Carolina was 81 per cent. of its voting population. Massachusetts ” 56 ” ” ” ” South Carolina ” 82 ” ” ” ” Rhode Island ” 37 ” ” ” ” Mississippi was 49 per cent. of its voting population. Vermont ” 66 ” ” ” ” Alabama ” 58 ” ” ” ” Florida ” 83 ” ” ” ” Maryland’s vote for each Congressman at the last Congressional election (1902) averaged: Maryland 44,085 Illinois 45,275 New York 41,826 Pennsylvania 36,662 North Carolina 29,267 Virginia 26,409 Massachusetts 29,628 Rhode Island 28,284 Vermont 28,108 Maine 26,430 South Dakota 96,131 Colorado 92,167 Alabama 17,731 Florida 12,677 Georgia 11,155 Louisiana 9,770 Mississippi 7,388 South Carolina 7,259 [56] Address of Mr. Charles A. Gardiner, cited ante. [57] See the Romanes Lectures, 1902: The Relations of the Advanced and the Backward Races of Mankind. By James Bryce, D.C.L. CHAPTER VI THE OLD-TIME NEGRO I That the “old-time Negro” is passing away is one of the common sayings all over the South, where once he was as well known as the cotton-plant and the oak tree. Indeed, he has become so rare that even now when a gray and wrinkled survivor is found he is regarded as an exceptional character, and he will soon be as extinct as the dodo. That he will leave a gap which can hardly be filled is as certain as that the old-time cavalier or the foster-father of romance has left his gap. The “new issue” at which the old-time Negro, who had been the servant and the associate of gentlemen, once turned up his nose from his well-secured position, and of which he spoke in terms of scornful reprobation, has, with the passing of time, pushed him from his stool, and is no longer the “new issue,” but the general type that prevails commonly—the Negro with his problem; a problem which it may, as has been well said by Mr. Root, take all the wisdom, all the forbearance, and all the resolution of the white race to solve. Some of the “Afro-Americans,” with the veneer of a so-called education, to judge from recent works written by certain of them, presume to look down somewhat scornfully on this notable development of their race, and assume a fine scorn of the relation which once existed all over the South between the old-time Southerner and the old-time darky, and which still exists where the latter still survives.