Another point that agitated the convention was, what laws should be passed to fix the status of the Negro, and, after a long discussion, a committee was appointed to frame a code of laws to be submitted to the legislature, which should assemble under the constitution adopted by this convention. The product of that commission was "The Black Code." Its intentions and provisions were foreshadowed in the debates of the convention. At the close of the debate I spoke for five minutes, closing with the prediction that if the convention thought that its work would be of any value to the state, they were mistaken. If the convention thought it possible to provide a different code of laws for the government of the loyal black citizens of the United States, from that which governed the disloyal white citizens of South Carolina, they did not understand what the war had accomplished. I said that I knew more of the
Opinion of the War
than it was possible for any man in that convention or all of them to know. While I spoke with modesty before men who had occupied high political positions in the past, I spoke with confidence as to the opinion of the people of the North who had waged a successful war against secession and slavery. Speaking for them I predicted that their laws would be made by major-generals and executed by provost-marshals until the last man present would fall into his grave before the North would admit the state into the Union under a constitution which did not recognize that all men were equal before the law. When I sat down there was a dead silence and solemn faces.
To show the opposition I excited, let me give another anecdote.
James L. Orr came to my room one evening and asked me not to be offended if he requested that upon a certain question he proposed to bring before the convention the next day I would not speak in its favor. He said: "There are fools enough in this convention that do not want anything that you do want, and every time you speak on a measure you hinder its adoption." The proposition he had at hand was to
Reduce the Time
requisite to obtain citizenship in the state from three years to one, and after much difficulty he persuaded the convention to make the change. He also wished to abolish the property qualification for state senators. Tillman appealed to him in an eloquent speech to spare this last relic of South Carolina conservatism. Orr, in reply, asked what in God's name had South Carolina conservatism done for South Carolina. He pointed to what its condition was once and what it now was, and charged South Carolina conservatism with the result. His speech was a powerful one, and brought the convention to his views, and no property qualification was thereafter imposed upon any officer.
Near the close of the convention I asked leave to present a petition from 250 colored property owners of the city of Charleston, who asked that the right of suffrage be extended to them. This, I suppose, was the first petition of the kind ever offered in the slave states. A member of the convention immediately moved that the petition be returned to me and not received by the convention. Mr. Orr said that the petition was respectful in form and ought to be received. He moved that it be laid on the table. Another delegate moved that
No Mention