Speeches at the Constitutional Convention / With the Right of Suffrage Passed by the Constitutional Convention

BY GEN. ROBT. SMALLS.
WITH THE RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE PASSED BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.
COMPILED BY MISS SARAH V. SMALLS.
ENQUIRER PRINT, 425 KING STREET. CHARLESTON, S. C. 1896
Months previous to the time that the recent Constitutional Convention met, Conservatives and Reformers, announced publicly their intention to disfranchise the Negro in South Carolina.
For this pamphlet such portions of the new Constitution have been selected as affect the colored people, together with the speeches made thereon by my father Robert Smalls; several editorials from leading newspapers; also a few of many letters received by him from all parts of the country congratulating him for the manly spirit displayed by him and the other colored delegates, whenever the rights of their race were in jeopardy.
Indeed, it may have been an object lesson, planned by the All-wise God, to teach the haughty, boastful sons of Carolina that there are Negroes capable and amply qualified in every respect to protect themselves whenever it becomes necessary to do so; that those few representatives of the race were but a very small part of the rising host that time and education are bringing forward day by day in spite of lynching, caste prejudice or any methods used against them.
No stenographers were employed by the Convention, the speeches were not written, and are therefore not given in full, but just as they were published in the papers of the State.
SARAH V. SMALLS.
The following plan of suffrage was introduced by Hon. Robert Smalls and referred to the suffrage committee, which reported it unfavorably, notwithstanding that he went before the committee and made a strong speech in advocacy of the said plan, and said report was adopted by the Convention:
Section 1. In all elections by the people the electors shall vote by ballot.
Sec. 2. Every male citizen of the United States of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, not laboring under the disabilities named in this Constitution, without distinction of race, color or former condition, who shall be a resident of this State at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, or who shall thereafter reside in this State one year, and in the county in which he offers to vote sixty days next preceding any election, shall be entitled to vote for all officers that are now or hereafter may be elected by the people, and upon all questions submitted to the electors at any elections; provided, That no person shall be allowed to vote or hold office who is now, or hereafter may be, disqualified therefor by the Constitution of the United States, until such disqualification shall be removed by the Congress of the United States; provided, further, That no person while kept in any alms house or asylum, or any of unsound mind, or confined in any public prison, shall be allowed to vote or hold office.