The Negro and the elective franchise. A series of papers and a sermon — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Negro and the elective franchise. A series of papers and a sermon
John Stuart Mill · en
Of this about 9 per cent. (488,070) was free—perhaps ½ of this was
literate, i.e., about 5 per cent. of the whole.
Equal 95 per cent. or higher.
Colored population above 10 years in 1870 equal whole population,
4,880,009, less 28.7 per cent. equals under 10 leaving 3,464,806.
Above 10, unable to write, 2,789,689.
Equal 80 per cent.
Colored population above 10 years in 1880 4,601,207. Above 10,
unable to write, 3,220,878.
Equal 70 per cent.
Colored population above 10 years in 1890 5,328,972. Above 10,
unable to write, 3,042,668.
Equal 57.1 per cent.
Colored population above 10 years in 1900 6,415,581. Above 10,
unable to write, 2,853,194.
Equal 44.5 per cent.
Is it credible that our millions lived under the benign influence of
slavery, almost without crime and continued even after the Emancipation
Act to live peacefully and honestly:—and then, upon the passage of the
14th Amendment dropped suddenly from this moral zenith? Such sudden
transformations are not natural: either slavery made the criminality of
the African: or held it in a grip barely strong enough to prevent its
issue in acts of violence: or, else this record of crime is false. One
of these three explanations, we cannot choose but accept. The South at
least, cannot admit the first, for slavery, they declared, even before
God at His Altar, to be a benign institution; neither can they admit the
second, for it, too, is inconsistent with the gentleness and benignity
of slavery. But will they admit the third? "Nine tenths of the illicit
gains," says James Bryce, speaking of Reconstruction, "went to the
whites." Into like parts, Woodrow Wilson divides the responsibility and
the discredit. "Negroes," he writes, constituted the majority of their
electorates, but political power gave them no advantage of their own.
Adventurers swarmed out of the North, to cozen, beguile and use them....
They gained the confidence of the Negroes, obtained for themselves the
more lucrative offices, and lived upon the public treasury, public
contracts and their easy control of affairs. For the Negroes there was
nothing but occasional allotments of abandoned or forfeited land, the
pay of petty offices, a per-diem allowance as members of the
conventions, and the state legislatures, which their new masters made
business for, or the wages of servants in the various offices of
administration. Their ignorance and credulity made them easy dupes. A
petty favor, a slender stipend, a trifling perquisite, a bit of poor
land, a piece of money satisfied, or silenced them." This is the record
of crime until the quickly passing day of freedom was ended. And if
crime has increased since, so presently will ignorance increase and
idleness unless their growth is checked by the restoration of freedom
and justice and hope. Punishment will fail to stop the growth of