In Mississippi the struggle was bitter and bloody. Adelbert Ames, the Republican Governor of the State, in his desperation over impending disaster, applied to the Federal Government at Washington for United States troops to be used in terrorizing the people on election day. He is reported to have declared that the death of a few hundred negroes would make sure the success of the Republican party. Bloody riots occurred at Clinton, Yazoo City and Vicksburg, in which many negroes and some white men were killed. President Grant refused to send Federal troops into Mississippi, and his refusal was based on the report of Mr. C. K. Chase, an agent of the Attorney General of the United States, who had been sent to report on the application of Governor Ames for troops. His report being that there was no legal excuse for the presence of armed men. It was a struggle in which the forces of honesty and intelligence were arrayed against those of dishonesty and ignorance.
There could only be one result in the battle for the mastery between the white man and the negro; the negro must give way. The fight was fought and won. The South was redeemed. The Southern people exercised the right of revolution to free themselves. They used force, the only means in their power to overthrow misrule, corruption and dishonesty. The negroes were thoroughly beaten by the revolution of 1875. They never again attempted to vote in large numbers.
A period of mild intimidation continued for fourteen years. That method of preserving white supremacy was never entirely satisfactory, and Southern leaders and statesmen were anxious to remove the menace of future trouble by constitutional means. It was believed that the continued suppression of the negro vote would promote a feeling among the whites to use the same methods on each other and promote a low tone of political morality.
The movement to disfranchise the negro vote by legal means began in Mississippi under the leadership of Gen. James Z. George. The movement rapidly became popular, and Mississippi provided for a Constitutional Convention in 1890. Gen. George, the leader of the demand for white supremacy by legal means, was a United States Senator from Mississippi, and one of the great constitutional lawyers of the country. He was a rugged, honest, able and thoughtful man of the humble walks of life, who had carved out a brilliant career from a beginning of poverty and want. Senator George was born in Monroe county, Georgia, October 20th, 1826. His father died when his son was an infant, and his mother moved to the new State of Mississippi that her boy might have a better chance in life. The mother first found a home in Noxubee county, and lived there until her son was ten years old. They then moved to Carroll county, in 1836, and it became the life-long home of the man who was destined to lead the people of his adopted State out of the darkness and doubt of a suppressed negro vote into the light and freedom of a suffrage founded on justice and right and in keeping with constitutional law and liberty. The childhood and young manhood of James Z. George, like that of so many great men, was passed in genteel poverty, without the advantages which wealth can bestow and without the culture which education gives. He was not trained in the learning of the schools. He was poor. Victor Hugo, the great Frenchman, who made the world better by having lived in it, says that "Poverty is the greatest of opportunities." The men who dominated the world in the past—the great world leaders and nation makers—were not "clothed in fine linen, faring sumptuously every day"; they toiled to the light through the darkness of poverty. Senator George was one of those men
"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star."
The Constitutional Convention of 1890 met in Jackson, Mississippi, for the purpose of giving the State a new organic law. The convention was composed of the best men in Mississippi. Among the leaders and master minds of the body were James Z. George, S. S. Calhoon, Edward Mayes, H. F. Simrall, J. L. Alcorn and W. P. Harris. Judge Calhoon was an eminent jurist of the State, and he became President of the Convention. Edward Mayes was a law professor, Chancellor of the State University, and the most learned lawyer in the State. Judge Simrall was an ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was a clean Republican, and represented a Democratic constituency. Governor Alcorn was the most prominent Republican in the State. He had been Governor, a United States Senator, and was a forceful man of high character. Judge Harris was the leading lawyer of the Mississippi bar. He was able, thoughtful and brave, and did very active work in the Convention.