In 1868, in Missouri, the measure was voted down by 18,000 majority. Ib.
In Michigan, in 1868, when the Republican Party carried the State by nearly 32,000 majority, the question of Negro suffrage was voted down by nearly 39,000 majority. Ib.
In 1869 the people of New York defeated the proposed measure by over 32,000 majority, and the Legislature of that State rescinded a former act of the previous Legislature, which had, by a majority of two, ratified the Fifteenth Amendment. Id., p. 65.
On the 4th of March, 1869, in Indiana, seventeen Senators and thirty-six Representatives resigned from the Legislature to break a quorum and prevent the ratification of the amendment. Every one of these, with a single exception, was subsequently reëlected by the people. Id., p. 66-7.
Meantime, under the “Reconstruction Acts,” the amendment was forced on the South. Seven of the Southern States ratified it by the Negro vote, the whites being generally disfranchised, while in three of them—Virginia, Mississippi and Texas—ratification was assented to as a condition of readmission to the Union. Ib.
See also Eckenrode’s “Reconstruction in Virginia,” Johns Hopkins Press, 1904.
[53] For such an instance, see Dr. H. M. Field’s “Sunny Skies and Dark Shadows.”
[54] 1 Cr. 137; 118 U. S. Rep. 142.
[55] For example, in 1880 the vote of
| North Carolina | was | 81 | per cent. | of its | voting | population. |
| Massachusetts | ” | 56 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| South Carolina | ” | 82 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| Rhode Island | ” | 37 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| Mississippi | ” | 49 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| Vermont | ” | 66 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| Alabama | ” | 58 | ” | ” | ” | ” |
| Florida | ” | 83 | ” | ” | ” | ” |