A young professor, after reading portions of the manuscript here printed, asked, “Where is this leading to? Suppose the Negro is evangelized and educated as thoroughly as your ideal for him seems to desire. What will happen, and what is to be his relation to the white people in this country?” That has been the white man’s question ever since the possible consequences of his bringing the Negroes to the new land were brought home to him. The question was faced with impelling emphasis as the Fathers of the Republic contemplated the purposes and ideals of the new form of government which they established. From this government they expected to realize an equality of opportunity for all men such as no other had ever dreamed of as an ideal to be desired. The Declaration of Independence inevitably brought the white man’s question to the fore as he faced the red man, owner by right of occupation, and the black man, now become American by right of birth. Just as inevitably, with the first freedman, arose the negro’s question, “What is my status in American life?” The clamor for a true, unclouded answer to both questions increased with the increasing numbers of the freedmen.
Even during the slave era, with the growth in numbers and in race consciousness on the part of the intelligent, educated few, the question of the status of the Negro in American life inevitably arose. Among those who were first to awake to the inevitable was the Rev. James W. C. Pennington, D.D., of New York, foremost among the negro scholars and leaders of the last century.
Lecturing in England and Scotland about 1840, Dr. Pennington said, “The colored population of the United States have no destiny separate from that of the nation in which they are an integral part. Our destiny is bound up with that of America. Her ship is ours; her pilot is ours; her storms are ours; her calms are ours. If she breaks upon any rock, we break with her. If we, born in America, cannot live upon the same soil on terms of equality with the descendants of Scotchmen, Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Hungarians, Greeks, and Poles, then the fundamental theory of America fails and falls to the ground.”
The same question is involved today in any discussion of the status of the Negro. The Negro cannot answer it alone, the white race must enter with him into these too often forbidden portals, and help him unlock the door of mystery.
What, then, is the Negro’s status in American political life? It is that which our national Constitution gives him, with lawful qualifications made by several States. No sincere Christian can stand for the breaking or the ignoring of law. If laws are bad, change them; but safety, justice, and decency demand that they be obeyed—else, anarchy. The national Constitution declares the ideal. The qualifications of the States are based upon the same just principle “that the best qualified should rule;” the practice of the politicians is quite another thing. The wise know that the resort to illegality to gain ends is as the pit to destroy others.
During the slave era, the negro leaders of the freedmen set themselves to the task of establishing their citizenship; so that this question was a live issue even before the Civil War. Out of it, grew two distinct theories of relationship of the Negro to American life. Richard Allen was the leader of one school of thought. He and his confrères had been treated with scant courtesy in the white Methodist Church of Philadelphia; he therefore withdrew, and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His contention was that the Negro should have his own Church, his own leaders, and should build his own enterprises in every line of endeavor.
The leader of the opposite school was Frederick Douglass, who thus declared the principle upon which his following proceeded: “I am well aware of the anti-Christian prejudices which have excluded many colored persons from white churches, and the consequent necessity of erecting their own places of worship. This evil I would charge upon its originators, and not the colored people. But such a necessity does not now exist to the extent of former years. There are societies where color is not regarded as a test of membership, and such places I deem more appropriate for colored persons than exclusive or isolated organizations.”
While, in detail, these two theories may vary in their developing expression, the principles upon which they were founded remain, and powerfully affect the Negroes’ attitude towards all the departments of our complex life. The question was both natural and inevitable, and became an increasingly live issue with the growing free population, as they looked forward hopefully, in 1850, to the day of universal freedom. It was a question which could not be answered by themselves alone. The disfranchisement of the Negro before the Civil War, was so nearly universal, that the answer to his question of relation to the political life of America was clearly a negative one. But there was a growing sentiment in the Northern States, coincident with the rise of the Abolition party, toward negro suffrage on a restricted basis.
It is probable that President Lincoln’s very conservative view of the matter would have expressed the view of the growing minority of whites before the war; and, had he lived after it, it is equally likely that it would have prevailed over all the reunited Union, as it does, with qualifications, in many States at the present time. I quote his letter, written in 1864, to the Governor of Louisiana, and printed in the Negro Year Book of 1919. “Now you are about to have a Convention which, among other things, will probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest, for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in, as for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to the public, but to you alone.” Again in his last public speech, April 11, 1865, in speaking of the new Louisiana Government, he said: “It is also unsatisfactory to some, that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.”
It is true that a State like Mississippi would be in an intolerable condition if unqualified suffrage were in practice, because the majority of the Negroes and some of the Whites are either illiterate, or too nearly so, to be intelligent voters. It is safe to say that no intelligent man, black or white, in the State, would vote for unrestricted franchise with its certain consequence of domination by the mass of the unfit.