}
Mr. Robert Smalls, Beaufort, S. C.:
Dear Sir—We have read over here the telegraphic report about the metaphorical bomb you threw into the Constitutional Convention, with the greatest glee. But not only was it the best sort of fuse—it was loaded, too, with the most explosive truth, (it seems to have scattered the ladies.) Such jokes as yours make an entrance for the truth when cold logic slides off like water from a duck’s back. Gen. Ben Butler’s phrase about the contraband of war converted more Democrats than Seward’s great speeches. And so I doubt not your “little joke” will do more to make the scales drop from people’s eyes than even Douglass’ admirable tract “Why is the Negro Lynched;” (Of this I will try to send you a copy.) Butler’s “Contraband” prepared the way for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Your resolution, so aptly timed, I regard as one of those immense things that influence destiny. I do not know how much it will be written about in the papers, but I believe it is only second in the importance of its influence to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because of its opportuneness. No occasion could have occurred—none can again occur—when that truth wrapped up in the words of your amendment could have reached home to the American people—could have penetrated the harness and armor of the late Rebel master. More than that, you have prepared the way for one of the greatest books on the relations of the Negro and the mulatto to the white race. I speak, of course, of Mr. Keeper’s book, “Minden Armies.” At once on reading your action and its result in the Convention, I wrote an article, intended to be light and attractive, and took it to one of the great London dailies, but it was returned as the subject was hardly of enough consequence to their constituency, their columns being so crowded. I should be very glad to have the best report of that meeting that is published, as I want to see the details in full. Address me.
Yours truly,
HORACE J. SMITH,
44 Grosvenor Road, London S. W.
Special to the World.
Columbia, S. C., Sept. 30—Five of the six Negro delegates to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention, which proposes to disfranchise the blacks, have joined in the following address to the North, through The World:
To the Editor of the World:
The Seventh Constitutional Convention called in South Carolina is in session. It has been called for the purpose of dealing with the Negro problem. Those who have advocated its assembling have been explicit in their declaration of the purposes to be accomplished—the disfranchisement of the Negro and the elimination of him entirely, not from a participation in elections, for he has not since 1886 had any show at all in any of the elections held in the State, but of the possibility of the Negro uniting with the conservative Democratic faction and thus oust from place and power those now in control of the Government. The chief obstacle in the way of accomplishing what is desired is the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. This difficulty removed, there will be plain sailing.
The Hon. Benjamin Ryan Tillman, who is the head and front of the movement, has not been at all politic or hypocritical as to his intentions. He has said that his object is to disfranchise as many Negroes as he possibly can without disfranchising a single white man, except for crime.