In Search of Federal Enforcement : The Moral Authority of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Integrity of the Black Ballot, 1870–1965 9780761865773, 9780761865766

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In Search of Federal Enforcement The Moral Authority of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Integrity of the Black Ballot, 1870–1965 Vanessa A. Holloway

University Press of America,® Inc. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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Also by Vanessa A. Holloway Getting Away with Murder: The Twentieth-Century Struggle for Civil Rights in the U.S. Senate

Contents

Foreword

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Preface

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Acknowledgments

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Introduction: The Culpable Congress: The Enforcement Acts Repealed

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Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness: Some Consequences of Administrational Subterfuge The “Do-Nothing Congresses”: Legal Efforts Met with Failure The Wrong Kind of Politics: Disfranchisement Proceeds Apace Voting Rights, Voting Wrongs: More Legal Chicanery Ensuing Challenges, Which Way Is to Daylight?

15 23 31 39 47

1 2 3 4 5

Appendix A: Profiles of the 41ST–89TH Congress

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Appendix B: Southern Democratic Senators 41ST–89TH Congress

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Selected Bibliography

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Foreword

The recent legal decision regarding the Trayvon Martin case and the shooting death of Michael Brown by the hand of a law enforcement officer in Ferguson, Missouri, compel us to revisit disturbing and reoccurring incidences common to the black American experiences. Historically, a dominant feature of the black American experiences is the persistent attempts by the dominant group to control the bodies and mobility of black Americans. W.E.B. DuBois, an intellectual giant and an unacknowledged founder of Sociology, observed more than a century ago that various legal mechanisms tend to control the bodies and movements of black Americans, thereby denying many of them access to the American dream. A cursory review of historiography provides ample examples to validate DuBois’s observations. For example, the Declaration of Independence declared most black Americans three-fifths human beings and the Emancipation Proclamation marked the beginning of the ebbs and flows of imprisonment as an efficacious tool for reinforcing the dominant group’s control over the lifechances of black-Americans’ bodies. Although, the Civil War held the promise of changing forever the dynamics of race relations in the South, this promise was ultimately not realized because of the recalcitrant Southern ruling class’ commitment to white supremacy. The latter provided leadership to the South’s congressional delegation and the Compromise of 1877 placed them in positions to largely bring to an end black Americans’ participations in Southern politics until the Civil Rights Movement. It is within this context that young academic, Vanessa A. Holloway, skillfully utilizes the national government’s lack of enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment to demonstrate that the suppression of black Americans’ votes have a long and ignoble history. Vanessa A. Holloway’s book provides readers with a powerful analytical framework for understanding conservatives’ persistent attempts to suppress vii

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black Americans’ vote as nothing new. Contemporary conservatives’ stratagem aimed at suppressing black Americans’ constitutional voting rights has an ignoble linage that goes back to the early period of Reconstruction. Shortly after the defeat and occupation of the former Confederate Southern states by the Union Army, Black Codes and minor legal infractions were used to disfranchise black Americans. Despite the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, black Americans’ dreams of 40 acres and a mule were eventually supplanted by the reconstitution of the legal arrangements that perpetuate white hegemony over black bodies’ mobility. Holloway’s analytical frameworks and insightful questions result in an intellectually rigorous narrative that details the reasons why the Southern Bloc in Congress and private actors worked assiduously to suppress black Americans’ participations in the voting processes. The success of the Southern Bloc was reflected by the repeal of the Enforcement Acts of 1870-1871. It may very well have been the effectiveness of both the Southern Bloc and private actors in circumventing the Fifteen Amendment that led Congress to pass the Voting rights Act of 1965. Holloway delineates the impact of repealing the 1870 Enforcement Acts and filibustering the 1890 Federal Elections Bill. Equally important, she reveals the tacit complicity of the national government with the Southern Bloc in the passage of exclusionary laws targeting and divorcing black Americans from their Constitutional voting rights. In Search of Federal Enforcement speaks powerfully to an unsettling and reoccurring term in historiography. Specifically, from the founding fathers usage of the Three-Fifths Clause that erected barriers to black Americans’ full cultural and political participations in the nation’s development and progress, black Americans have been treated as outsiders whose alleged pathological subcultures and irresponsible behaviors are the primary explanatory variables for them not sharing equally in the American dream. Historically, cultural assumptions informing the dominant group’s beliefs about black Americans have resulted in the disproportionate disenfranchisement of poor and disconnected black Americans. In short, the nexus between race and the legal system constitutes a pernicious cocktail that has devastated myriad lives and communities across black America. Holloway’s In Search of Federal Enforcement provides us with the tools to understand the national government’s roles in reproducing and thereby perpetuating the subordination and marginalization of black Americans. Consequently, I would like to thank her for assisting us in lifting the legal veil and the government’s complicity in the continued oppression and marginalization of one of the nation’s oldest racial groups. Owen Brown, November 2014 The City University of New York MEC

Preface

This book is the sum total of my intellectual curiosity about why the constitutionality of the Fifteenth Amendment’s federal enforcement was not upheld until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In pursuit of understanding the ninety-fiveyear interregnum, I contest orthodoxies of legal studies by arguing that after the Enforcement Acts of 1870–71 were repealed, the Fifteenth Amendment went unenforced because Southern Democrats operated in tandem with intransigent private actors to codify disfranchisement. In order to uncover defects in governmental morality and set an agenda for future research attentive to minority rights, these unanswered questions must be asked: (1) Why were the Enforcement Acts of 1870–71 repealed? (2) Why was disfranchisement legal? (3) During the ninety-five-year interregnum, who was responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment? Congress? The federal courts? The States? The final goal of this book is to satisfy the reader’s curiosity as to why the national government was culpably negligent in protecting the exercise of the franchise for black Americans. The following pages will lay bare purposeful discriminatory policies and practices, while critically evaluate how the Southern status quo stimulated chaos at the national level. That said, the book might also be useful to readers who find themselves engaged in discourses about minority voting rights but have not studied the topic historically. Vanessa A. Holloway, January 2015 New York City

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Acknowledgments

It is impracticable to render thanks to every individual for assisting me in completing this book, but I must thank Amie Brown, my editor, for her patience in seeing the project through to maturity. Gratitude is also due to Abby Grossblatt and the Editorial Board at UPA for their interest in the proposal. I should also record thanks to my intellectual influences, although I have not always agreed with their viewpoints and interpretations of the subject matter. Lastly, moral support from my cohort made the mission of researching and writing viable.

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Introduction The Culpable Congress: The Enforcement Acts Repealed

The least-studied topic in all of African American history is that of minority voting rights. By drawing attention to the historic political struggle against voting manipulations and electoral abuse, this work indicts federal authority not enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment over a ninety-five-year interregnum, 1870–1965. The argument leads to the conclusion that Congress abandoned its legislative duties to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment and instead operated in tandem with private actors to codify the disfranchisement of illiterate and economically disadvantaged black Americans. On the one hand, the discussion is intended to prove that “Congress was just as culpable in destroying African American civil rights as were the southern states and the courts,” 1 and on the other hand, “The disfranchisement of blacks in the South occurred with the acquiescence, if not the explicit approval, of the federal government. 2 Some argue that “the central government, particularly by virtue of the Fifteenth Amendment, had substantial power to safeguard the suffrage against racial bias.” 3 Rightly understood, Congress failed to assume responsibility for enforcing the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment, in which “the language could not have been clearer.” 4 “Section One states that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” “Section Two stipulates that the Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” 5 As stated by Mark Rush, “Literacy tests and often flagrantly discriminatory administration of the registration system, supplemented by violence and economic retaliation sometimes directed against blacks who sought to register, blocked further progress. It became the consensus among voting rights sup1

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porters that federal action would be necessary. Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment placed this responsibility squarely on the shoulders of Congress.” 6 Hence, when the government failed to act it sent the message that “states were constitutionally at liberty to impose literacy tests of such kind as they choose, in such language as they deem desirable, with such a degree of difficulty as they care to impose.” 7 Granted, some unbending objections assert that “suffrage does not come from the federal government” and that the national government is not responsible for “conspiracies against voters and crimes against the franchise.” 8 Further, “Congress has no power to deal with unofficial individuals who interfere with the franchise.” For these observers, such an intervention on the part of federal authorities “would be an invasion of the police power of the state.” Therefore, “Unless the wrong is being done by a representative of the state no remedial power exists in Congress.” 9 This reasoning represents the strongest challenge to the argument presented here. While misconceived, these views, which appear frequently throughout past literature, help establish a plausible counterargument. When properly understood, the constitutional disfranchisement movements in the South were unreasonable requirements diluting the votes of black Americans, but they were neither illegal nor a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment’s provisions. Arguably, “without intense federal pressure, the states could effectively continue to exclude Negroes from the political process.” 10 So then, the very rights black Americans gained during Reconstruction were taken away from them. In Garth Pauley’s opinion: Southern legislatures passed new election laws in the 1890s that were not discriminatory at face value, with Mississippi leading the way. New tools to keep blacks from casting their ballots in the Magnolia State included residence requirements, literacy and understanding tests, and poll taxes. Other states soon followed suit, adopting similar measures as well as new ones, including the disqualification of voters who did not have vouchers of “good character” and who had committed crimes of “moral turpitude.” Southern states also moved to exclude African American voters through the adoption of grandfather clauses. 11

Inescapably, the fact that the Fifteenth Amendment was inoperative for nearly a century 12 had a pernicious influence on the South. Perhaps most troubling about the long interregnum is the fact that Congress repealed the 1870–71 Enforcement Acts. What also resulted was an ineffective anti-Klan crusade. By responding to the plague of political violence, these Acts served to right the injustices of the era. Also, at the time of enactment the statutes consisted of punishment for anyone who interfered with black Americans’ ballot box. 13 Central to this, the legislation also “prohibited state officials from applying election laws in a racially biased manner, outlawed physical

Introduction

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threats and economic intimidation against voters, and forbade individuals from conspiring to interfere with a person’s right to cast a ballot.” 14 Furthermore, Congress “appointed supervisors to watch for election irregularities, scrutinize enrollment procedures, and certify election results.” 15 The enactment meant that Congress embarked on one of the most daring legislative events in history. However, as a result of Congress’s repealing the Enforcement Acts, 16 “the concern of the federal government did not last” 17 and “interest in protection of the rights of blacks to vote following the Civil War was brief.” 18 That is to say, repealing the Enforcement Acts was a form of congressional nonsupport that left black Americans subject to the vicissitudes of disfranchisement that included: legal authorized violence, politically marginalized, and reduced to second-class citizenship. The accepted practice of constitutional disfranchisement prevailed whereby former Confederate states wrote disfranchisement into their constitutions. While it is true that the Fifteenth Amendment does not guarantee the right to vote, but only prevents states from discriminating, the Republicans who passed it likely assumed that was all they needed to do to protect black American voters. In fact, they did not imagine that the South would find a number of ways to nullify black Americans’ vote and negate their legal gains. Moreover, another perennial problem was race-neutral literacy tests that also disfranchised some poor whites, though applying literacy provisions to all voters appeared to subjectively debase black Americans. Though Republicans noticed that the South’s response resulted in disfranchisement becoming a broad movement, no legislative efforts to prevent this were made. Specifically, “From 1871 to 1957, not one new piece of federal civil rights legislation was enacted.” 19 It is likely no surprise that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took more of an interest than the national government in challenging suffrage restrictions against black Americans. 20 Indeed, the NAACP called for the ouster of the Southern bloc. Edward Ayers described Congress as a system and culture noting that, “Political life in the New South was a complicated and contradictory affair. The men in whom voters invested so much passion and even blood did relatively little once they got into office. The national government took more from the South than it gave back; state governments permitted the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer; local governments barely kept the machinery running.” 21 Congressional enforcement legislation, in consistent with the Constitution, was necessary so that regulating the voting process was not left to the states that had full freedom to restrict. In every respect, states’ rights cost black Americans their politcal freedom. As it turned out, “The federal government was willing to let the white South deal with blacks as best it saw fit.” 22 Concerted efforts to employ elaborate voting stratagems prevented black Americans from benefiting from the Fifteenth Amendment as intended.

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In fact, constitutional disfranchisement invalidated the Fifteenth Amendment’s effectiveness to protect from private interference. Owing to private prerogatives, the integrity of black Americans’ ballots was far from secure. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens even stated, “Ulysses S. Grant was president when the Fifteenth Amendment, which granted former slaves the right to vote, was ratified. In 1877, federal troops were withdrawn and white supremacist groups like the KKK effectively put an end to African American voting in the South for the next eighty years.” 23 As it happened, when Republicans charged Democrats with voting fraud, 24 it was not uncommon to find corruption among both Klan-influenced government officials and private actors who had discriminatory motives and who introduced bureaucratic voting preconditions. 25 In other words, “The South made every effort to undo the enfranchisement of black people. Between 1890 and 1910, 12 states enacted laws that did not mention race but were widely used to prevent non-whites from voting.” 26 To understand the harm associated with these disfranchising measures Garth Pauley claimed, “Southern whites plotted to shrink the black electorate through gerrymandering, discriminatory registration systems, complicated ballot configurations, secret ballots, and fraudulent vote counts; when these failed, racist whites often turned to intimidation and violence.” 27 Additionally, other methods of voter discrimination included: gerrymandering, understanding tests, slow processing of voter registration forms, relocation of polling places, voucher systems, and delay tactics to make appeals impossible. 28 But more than that, in 1954 the White Citizens’ Councils organized to continue voter setbacks by “arranging former employers to threaten to fire black employees who planned to register to vote and for banks to foreclose on the mortgages of black voters.” 29 Moreover, those who attempted to vote “suffered financial reprisals. Some were fired from their jobs; others had their names removed from the welfare rolls. Loans were called in and further credit refused.” 30 After so many repeated incidents, along with terror and intimidation, voting rights advocates insisted that “federal legislation was necessary to outlaw constitutional disfranchisement.” 31 As believed by Garth Pauley, “A consequence of this cycle was that many voting rights advocates began to believe that action by the other two branches of the federal government was necessary to enforce the rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment.” 32 Among the scholarly interpretations of black Americans’ suffrage, it was most appropriate for civil rights lawyer and voting rights activist Frank Parker to state, “Since the end of Reconstruction, civil rights litigation has been a necessary component of the civil rights struggle in America.” 33 In times past, Congress had acted in favor of black Americans’ civil rights by intervening with legislation. Consider, for example, that at the end of the nineteenth century, Congress sent federal troops to Georgia, which resulted

Introduction

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in a congressional bill deeming overt racial exclusion in Georgia’s legislature illegal. 34 Also at the end of the nineteenth century, “Congress enacted civil rights laws, used the military to force the South to fully end slavery, and passed amendments that made the federal government a protector of individual rights.” 35 Another example of congressional action was when Congressmen Henry Lodge, a supporter of federal supervision, submitted the Federal Elections Bill to the House of Representatives. This bill would have allowed federal troops to monitor violent or chaotic elections rather than leave the process to local Southern officials. 36 In addition, the bill would have enforced the Fifteenth Amendment; however, it died in the Senate due to the Democratic-led filibuster. Though Congressman Lodge’s efforts to get the bill passed supposedly symbolized the Republican Party’s commitment to overturn suffrage restrictions, constitutional disfranchisement needed to first be ruled illegal for the bill to be effective. In other words, repeal disfranchisement, deeming it illegal, and then introduce the bill for effectiveness. While the Federal Elections Bill of 1890 marked Congress’s final effort to advance civil rights for black Americans, its seventy-five-year inaction implied that minority rights were of little importance to the national government’s agenda. According to Thomas Upchurch: The defeat of the Federal Elections Bill marked a turning point in American history. It represented the Republican Party’s final abandonment of the humanitarian ideals of Reconstruction. That meant, in effect, that it also marked the exact point in time that the federal government abandoned the cause of finding a solution to the South’s race problem and of providing some means to uplift the African American race. Not until the advent of the civil rights movement more than a half-century later would African Americans be able to count on the federal government to protect their rights. Although the plan of supervising congressional elections had never proven to be an effective solution to the problem of the ballot box fraud or voter intimidation, it was arguably better than doing nothing. 37

It is, therefore, necessary to accept that constitutional disfranchisement not only condoned the actions of those who carried it out, but also normalized white supremacy. For example, “To circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment, legislators created clever devices that would disfranchise black citizens . . . The new laws gave the greatest power to local registrars” . . . In 1890, one Mississippi official said, “The plan is to invest permanently the powers of government in the hands of the people who ought to have them-the white people.” 38 As civil rights lawyer and voting rights activist Frank Parker argued, “This power struggle is a contest between, on the one hand, a powerful white elite, struggling to maintain its dominant position in society, and, on the other hand, disadvantaged blacks, in a subordinate position, striving to

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achieve their desired goals of political, social, and economic advancement.” 39 Alternatively, Congress granted federal courts the power to deal with minority voting rights issues. Specifically, the courts were responsible for providing “relief to the nature of the violation.” 40 However, the Supreme Court rulings also did not appear to uphold the Enforcement Acts. As a matter of fact, “African Americans quickly grew impatient and disillusioned with Congress’ and the presidency’s failures and saw the U.S. Supreme Court as their last best hope. And so from the early 1890s through the early 1900s, they launched initiatives that were designed to yield a direct Supreme Court review of disfranchisement. In that period they gave the Court twelve chances to make things right. Twelve times, the Court disappointed them.” 41 Before then, in 1875, the Court ruled in Minor v. Happersett that “the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one” and that “privilege of voting is derived not from the United States but is conferred by the state.” In 1876, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Cruikshank and United States v. Reese that “in order to secure conviction in voter discrimination or intimidation cases, federal attorneys must prove that the offenders both operate as agents of the state and intended to discriminate for reasons of race.” 42 To prove that the Court’s rulings undermined the Acts, Garth Pauley noted, “The Court decisions as well as the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1878, helped create an environment in which Southerners used discriminatory qualifications to prevent African Americans from registering, turned to violence and intimidation to depress black voter turnout, and used fraud to undo the effect of votes still cast.” 43 In short, the federal judiciary showed itself to be utterly unequal to the task of addressing enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment. It was significant that in the 1965 Voting Rights Act Congress took the position that its enforcement power under the Fifteenth Amendment extended not only to state action, but to private conduct as well. 44 On this account, voter registration gradually increased. “By the turn of the century, virtually all blacks had been disfranchised in the South. Abandoned by the federal government . . . the majority of blacks in the South would not be permitted to exercise the franchise until 1965.” 45 When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act, the law eliminated literacy requirements for “six Southern states and part of a seventh, and the extension of the Act later removed literacy qualifications for voting in all states.” 46 Consequently, “Southern states lost their traditional prerogative to set rules for registration and other aspects of the election process—a prerogative long assumed to be vital to the notion of states as entities with powers independent of the national government.” 47 Moreover, “The Voting Rights Act swept away the primary legal barriers to black registration and voting gin the South, eliminating the literacy tests and the poll taxes and allowing the Justice Department to

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dispatch federal registrars and poll watchers to insure the integrity of the voting process.” 48 Section Two of the Act states, “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” 49 Finally, this landmark legislation eliminated all deterrents and abridged states’ traditional prerogatives to set voting rules that had existed since 1890. Before a study of black American voting rights can properly be addressed, it is first important to examine the changes in the historiography. With help from other disciplines such as law and sociology, scholars understand new ways to the meaning of civil rights for black Americans. Although numerous studies have placed black Americans and Southern politics in the forefront, research seeking to examine Southern Democrats’ and private actors’ role in the disfranchising era is less extensive. As will be shown through the examples of historiography, their roles have been deemphasized. My own research will focus more exclusively on the Fifteenth Amendment going unenforced for nearly a century. By doing so, the study will attempt to bring to light why the amendment went unenforced and whose responsibility it was to enforce it. All of the scholarship concerning minority voting rights reevaluates readers’ understanding of the post-Reconstruction Era while challenging readers to not assume that disfranchising measures were a foregone conclusion in the period immediately following the Civil War. Scholars not only differed in their evaluations but also provoked controversy in their conclusions. Evidence shows that these scholars do not agree with one another in every facet. It is believed that some of these arguments have been overemphasized and will eventually be revised on the basis of future research. To begin with, there has been one scholar that stood out the most in the twentieth century. With his work, Southern Politics in State and Nation in 1949, V.O. Key has taken an in-depth look at the Negro problem. Key has concluded that “the Southern Conservative position on Negro franchise is politically untenable for any length of time.” 50 In Key’s work, “The days of treating Negroes like sheep are done with. They cannot be maintained indefinitely in a submerged position . . . It is impossible at this stage to halt education among the Negroes. But the more you educate, the more you make inevitable a closer participation by Negroes in American life as a whole . . . The United States must either terminate education among Negroes, an impossibility, or prepare to accept the eventual consequences, that is, Negro equality under democracy.” 51 In addition to this, Key adds, “The black-belt whites succeeded in imposing their will on their states and thereby presented a solid regional front in national politics on the race issue.” 52 Key also presented the argument: “By yielding to their black belts in their desire for solidarity in national politics, the states of the South condemned themselves internally to a chaotic factional politics.” 53

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In his 1958 work, The Poll Tax in the South, Frederic Ogden focused on the Populists Party as responsible for the disfranchisement movement. Ogden gives attention to both the Democratic Party and the Populists Party. Ogden believed the “Democratic supremacy and white supremacy were portrayed as synonymous.” 54 Ogden argued that to understand the Southern electorate one must consider “the one party-system, the former white primary, registration procedures, the presence of a large Negro population, inertia and a custom of non-voting.” 55 When commenting on the disfranchisement movement he noted that “groups like Negroes and Texas Mexican-Americans, standing on the fringes of society, in it but not of it, have little incentive to meet a tax requirement for voting since the society gives them no encouragement to participate in its political processes.” 56 Ogden believed that “the one-party, or no party, system of the South is largely responsible for the ills of the region.” 57 In a 1960 article appearing in the Western Political Quarterly, Marian Irish wrote about Southern political behavior. She said: Politics in the South is the struggle for power among organized groups. The solid South simply does not exist except in the vapid imagination of professional Southerners. Southern political thought resembles a kaleidoscope of rapidly shifting rationalizations affected by many groups struggling for power within the region. And southern political behavior simply compounds the activities of these numerous and various groups, each trying to protect and promote its special interests through governmental action. 58

In a 1964 Journal of Politics article, Leslie Dunbar also wrote about the South. In her view: I premise that there has been such a thing as southern folk, clearly if not definably more a single people than any other Americans, composed of two grades of persons, both of whom have been truly part of the same folk, and yet one of whom, the Negro Southerners, because they were ruled by the other did not sense and hallow as did the white their folk integrity and their distinctness from the rest of the nation. 59

Also in the same year of the same journal, Charles Farris, Alfred Clubok, and John De Grove expressed their concern about political leadership in Florida in the twentieth century. They explained, “The dynamic economic and population growth in peninsular Florida afforded an excellent opportunity for assessing political leadership and Negro political participation in a wide variety of economic, political, and cultural settings.” 60 They also adopted the view, “To build a voting coalition requires skill, time, and patience. Demonstrations are immediate, dramatic, and form a racial standpoint, unambiguous. Moreover, demonstration or the threat of demonstration

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occurs in a situation which, unlike voting, is not structured by the white political community and, therefore, is not easily controlled or manipulated by the whites.” 61 Dewey Grantham’s 1965 work, The Democratic South focuses also on Southern politics. For example, Grantham looks at “those ideas and practices of a democratic nature that have manifested themselves in southern politics since the inception of the Solid South.” 62 Grantham remarked that “not only did it seem more and more unlikely that the South could ever dominate the Democratic party again, but it was also increasingly apparent that the national policies adopted during the thirties would ultimately strengthen organized labor, farmers, Negroes, and middle-class people sufficiently to force concessions from those who had long had the upper hand in the region.” 63 He, too, emphasized that progressives, “did much to encourage a widespread bifactionalism in the Democratic Party and to present the voters in the primaries with a real choice between conservative and liberal candidates.” 64 Grantham argued that the South has been influenced by three characteristics: (1) by divisions along social and geographic lines, (2) by a lively participation in the mainstream of national political movements, and (3) by conditions emanating from the federal system.” 65 Grantham noted, “Class and group conflict easily become blurred and also a dual factionalism based on liberalconservative divisions has difficulty in perpetuating itself.” 66 In George Tindall’s 1967 work, The Emergence of the New South, he shows us the social and political transformations in the South. Tindall maintained, “The South re-entered the world-but gave a backward glance over the border.” 67 William Keech’s 1968 work, The Impact of Negro Voting explains Tuskegee is as important as a demonstration of what votes do not bring as it is of what they bring, and in Durham, although it exemplifies how less than a majority can secure some gains, the failures of the vote are as significant as its success.” 68 However, Keech also spent considerable time discussing “universal suffrage is perfectly consistent with a highly stratified society . . . and the formal mechanisms of democracy do not assure much more than that elites will have incentives to meet demands that do not conflict with the values of the elites and the majority of the voters.” 69 David Broder’s 1972 work, The Party’s Over looks extensively at the decline of American party politics. Broder puts strong emphasis on the fact that “the governmental system is not working because the political parties are not working.” 70 Neal Peirce’s work in 1974, The Deep South States of America reaches the conclusion that “rapid and liberating change-change more fundamental than in any other region of America-has come to the states of the Deep South in the last two decades.” 71 Lorn Foster’s work in 1985, The Voting Rights Act deals with the events in the 1960s that contributed to shaping the landmark legislation. Foster’s book explains that the Supreme Court “does not see dilatation as an infringement upon the right to vote, at

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least not the right that is fundamental.” 72 Frank Parker, who published a 1990 work, Black Votes Count discusses court battles for voting rights in Mississippi. Wilbur Cash’s fiftieth-anniversary edition of The Mind of the South has taken an investigation into Southern class systems. C. Vann Woodward’s 1991 work, Reunion and Reaction provides us with a closer understanding of the Compromise of 1877. Morgan Kousser’s 1999 publication, Colorblind Injustice is a work that looks closely at the Supreme Court’s decision on civil rights. Kousser’s specifically argued that “in the nineteenth century the parties were too competitive, too responsible, too dependably committed to a program, and the voters were too civically conscious to let party elites stray from orthodoxy. Black votes counted for too much nationally.” 73 Steven Lawson’s 1999 work, Black Ballots explores the struggle for suffrage during the Second Reconstruction. Kenny Whitby’s 2000 work, The Color of Representation examines congressional responses to black political interests. Whitby believed “whether or not discrimination is to blame for the worst condition of blacks is a debatable issue.” 74 Whitby emphasized that “black voting rights and even legalized segregation were more matters of racial power than of unthinking racial animosity.” 75 Whitby stated, “Until there is sufficient evidence to show that the United States is moving toward a color-blind society, then it would seem unwise for Congress to retreat from protecting minority voting rights.” 76 Also, according to Whitby’s interpretation, “A society in which race conscious voting is prevalent needs raceconscious remedies to bring about some fairness.” 77 Kari Frederickson’s 2001 work, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South sheds light on the States’ Rights Democratic Party. Frederickson’s research contends that “Dixiecrats served as a stepping stone to the Republican Party.” 78 Laughlin McDonald’s 2003 work, A Voting Rights Odyssey looks at how white leadership in Georgia maintained white supremacy. McDonald argued that Georgia “was more systematic and thorough in its efforts to deny or limit voting and office-holding.” 79 Thomas Upchurch’s 2004 work, Legislating Racism explained the ways in which the Fifty-First Congress publicly debated the Southern Negro race problem. Upchurch acknowledged the “defeat of the Federal Elections Bill marked a turning point in American history, in addition to the end of the line for those expecting the federal government to rescue African Americans by protecting their civil rights.” 80 Garth Pauley’s 2007 work, LBJ’s American Promise highlights President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 historic voting rights speech. Pauley stated, “The president made the principle of equal voting rights meaningful and compelling through a public vocabulary of shared interests, motives, and aspirations in order to secure passage of the voting rights act.” 81 Pauley makes clear, “Rather than focusing Americans’ attention inward on the immediate historical moment, Johnson focused it outward onto a broader historical landscape, in which current events took on their meaning by how they related to the

Introduction

11

nation’s realization of its commitments to equality and justice.” 82 Edward Ayers’ 2007 work, The Promise of the New South stresses the emerging New South, with much attention in the years between Reconstruction and the beginning of the century. Ayers attempts to answer, “What it means to live in the American South” 83 during that time. In her 2009 work, Voting Rights— and Wrongs, Thernstrom reviews the political issues surrounding the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Gordon Martin’s 2010 work, Count Them One by One evaluates United States v. Lynd, a case where the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against voting registrar, Theron Lynd. In R. Volney Riser’s 2010 work, Defying Disfranchisement, he documents lawsuits challenging restrictive voting requirements. John Pinkard’s 2013 work, African American Felon Disenfranchisement points out felon disfranchisement laws on black Americans. Garrine Laney’s 2013 work, The Voting Rights Act of 1965 draws attention to the complex history of the 1965 Act. In his 2013 work, Bending Toward Justice, Gary May analyzed how black voters overcame years of white segregationists’ bigotry to secure their voting rights. Even though all the aforementioned works disagree about their view of the South, they all agreed that twentieth century Southern politics was complex and a struggle for black Americans who wished to vote. The next work will have to question this and ask more penetrating questions beyond this study. In all, it was clear that private actors held sway over Congress with respect to the suppression of black American voting rights. Past and recent scholarship concerning minority voting rights generally gives only a cursory acknowledgement of the facts presented within the study. However, this reading of the historical evidence, which deserves a book-length treatment, will hopefully become a staple in studies of African American history in the future. The book is divided into five chapters. The Introduction sets the historiographical foundation of the study. Since constitutional provisions concerning enforcement might not be clear to all readers, I summarize the meaning of Congress repealing the 1870–71 Enforcement Acts. Thereafter, I delve into the organization of the book. In Chapter One, I invite readers to see both the short and long term effects to upholding white supremacy in Congress. Chapter Two explains why enacting legislation to remedy constitutional disfranchisement was vitally important in the lives of black American voters, and also reviews congressional debates for and against the Federal Elections Bill of 1890. As a result of disfranchisement becoming a regional movement, Chapter Three catalogs the politically disorganized era that was plagued with violence. I begin Chapter Four by reminding the reader of congressional inaction to black Americans’ voting rights, with an emphasis on patterns of racism in consecutive Congresses. Chapter Five, the concluding chapter, offers a way of thinking about the impact of the filibuster and the legal and illegal constraints to voting that inevitably crippled the

12

Introduction

political opportunities for the legally disfranchised until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. NOTES 1. Kenneth Howell, review of Legislating Racism: The Billion Dollar Congress and the Birth of Jim Crow, Thomas Upchurch (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 1. 2. Bernard Grofman, Lisa Handley, and Richard Niemi, Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 9. 3. Steven Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 1999), ix. 4. Gordon Martin and Jr., Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), ix. 5. The House Joint Resolution proposing the 15th amendment to the Constitution, December 7, 1868, General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11 National Archives. 6. Daniel Lowenstein, “Race and Representation in the Supreme Court,” in Voting Rights and Redistricting in the United States, ed. Mark E. Rush (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 53. 7. Alfred Avins, “The Fifteenth Amendment and Literacy Tests: The Original Intent,” Stanford Law Review 18, no. 5 (1966): 821. 8. Julien Monnet, “The Latest Phase of Negro Disfranchisement,” Harvard Law Review 26, no. 1 (1912): 46. 9. Ibid., 46–47. 10. Steven Lawson, Black Ballots, x. 11. Garth Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise: The 1965 Voting Rights Address (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2007), 32. 12. Laurence Moreland, Tod Baker, and Robert Steed, eds., Blacks in Southern Politics (New York: Praeger, 1987), 9. 13. Steven Lawson, Black Ballots, 4. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Garrine Laney, The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Historical Background and Current Issues (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2013), 3. 17. Lorn Foster, The Voting Rights Act: Consequences and Implications (New York: Praeger Publishers Inc, 1985), 4. 18. Robert McKay, “Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 407, no. 1 (1973): 111. 19. Karen McGill Arlington and William Taylor, Voting Rights in America: Continuing the Quest for Full Participation ( Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993), 30. 20. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson, eds., Controversies in Minority Voting: the Voting Rights Act in Perspective (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992), 52. 21. Edward Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 54. 22. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson, eds., Controversies in Minority Voting, 10. 23. John Paul Stevens, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution (Little, Brown and Company, 2014), iv. 24. J. Morgan Kousser, “Post-Reconstruction Suffrage Restrictions in Tennessee: A New Look at the V. O. Key Thesis,” Political Science Quarterly 88, no. 4 (1973): 662. 25. John Hope Franklin, “Legal Disfranchisement of the Negro,” Journal of Negro Education 26, no. 3 (1957): 245. 26. Karen McGill Arlington and William Taylor, Voting Rights in America, 7. 27. Garth Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 31. 28. Ibid., 35.

Introduction

13

29. Garth E. Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 37. 30. Clive Webb, ed., Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 4. 31. Garth Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 37. 32. Ibid. 33. Frank Parker, Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi after 1965 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 6. 34. Ibid., 24. 35. Shad Ashcroft, ed., The Successes and Failures of Reconstruction: A Study with Documents (US History Documents, 2013), 157. 36. Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007 (Government Printing Office, 2008), 165. 37. Thomas Upchurch, Legislating Racism: The Billion Dollar Congress and the Birth of Jim Crow (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 166. 38. Gary May, Bending Toward Justice: the Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy (Basic Books, 2013), xi–xii. 39. Frank Parker, Black Votes Count, 5. 40. Laughlin McDonald, A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 178. 41. R. Volney Riser, Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890–1908 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 4. 42. Garth Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 30. 43. Ibid., 31. 44. “The Strange Career of State Action under the Fifteenth Amendment,” Yale Law Journal 74, no. 8 (1965): 1448. 45. Bernard Grofman, Lisa Handley, and Richard Niemi, Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality, 10. 46. Jack Bass and Walter Devries, The Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 47. 47. Abigail Thernstrom, Voting Rights—and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections (Washington, DC: Aei Press, 2009), 219. 48. Frank Parker, Black Votes Count, 1. 49. An Act to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and for other purposes, August 6, 1965; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789–; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives. 50. Arthur N. Holcombe, review of Southern Politics in State and Nation, by V. O. Key, Jr., American Political Science Review 44, no. 1 (1950): 193. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Tobe Johnson, review of The Poll Tax in the South, by Frederic Ogden, Journal of Negro History 44, no. 2 (1959): 179. 55. Ibid., 180. 56. Rayford W. Logan, review of The Poll Tax in the South, by Frederic D. Ogden, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 324, (1959): 186. 57. Ibid. 58. Marian Irish, “Political Thought and Political Behavior in the South,” Western Political Quarterly 13 (1960): 406. 59. Leslie Dunbar, “The Changing Mind of the South: The Exposed Nerve,” Journal of Politics 26, no. 1 (1964): 3. 60. Alfred Clubok, John M. De Grove, and Charles D. Farris, “The Manipulated Negro Vote: Preconditions and Consequences,” Journal of Politics 26, no. 1 (1964): 112. 61. Ibid. 62. Robert F. Durden, review of The Democratic South, by Dewey Grantham, South Carolina Historical Magazine 65, no. 4 (1964): 236. 63. Ibid.

14

Introduction

64. A. D. Kirwan, review of The Democratic South, by Dewey Grantham, Journal of Southern History 29, no. 4 (1963): 532. 65. Ibid., 533. 66. George Tindall, review of The Democratic South, by Dewey Grantham, Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 5, no. 2 (1964): 209. 67. W. Alexander Mabry, review of The Emergence of the New South, 1913–1945, by George Tindall, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 378 (1968): 171. 68. Clarence A. Berdahl, review of The Impact of Negro Voting: The Role of the Vote in the Quest for Equality, by William R. Keech, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 384 (1969): 148. 69. Stephen L. Wasby, review of The Impact of Negro Voting: The Role of the Vote in the Quest for Equality, by William Keech, Western Political Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1969): 215. 70. Allan P. Sindler, review of The Party’s Over: The Failure of Politics in America, by David S. Broder, American Political Science Review 67, no. 3 (1973): 1004. 71. Numan V. Bartley, review of The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States, by Neal R. Peirce, Florida Historical Quarterly 54, no. 2 (1975): 234. 72. Michael W. Combs, review of The Voting Rights Act: Consequences and Implications, by Lore S. Foster, American Political Science Review 80, no. 1 (1986): 322. 73. Michael Les Benedict, review of Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction, by J. Morgan Kousser, Historical Social Research 25, no. 3/4 (2000): 358. 74. Donn G. Davis, review of The Color of Representation: Congressional Behavior and Black Interests, by Kenny J. Whitby, Journal of Politics 62, no. 2 (2000): 580. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Mark Newman, review of The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968, by Kari Frederickson, Journal of American Studies 36, no. 3 (2002): 521. 79. Christine Lutz, review of A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia, by Laughlin McDonald, Journal of Southern History 71, no. 1 (2005): 214. 80. Robert Goldman, review of Legislating Racism: The Billion Dollar Congress and the Birth of Jim Crow, by Thomas Upchurch, Journal of American History 92, no. 2 (2005): 621. 81. Mary C. Brennan, review of LBJ’s American Promise: The Voting Rights Address, by Garth Pauley, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 111, no. 4 (2008): 465. 82. Jill Ogline, review of LBJ’s American Promise: The 1965 Voting Rights Address, by Garth Pauley, Journal of Southern History 74, no. 2 (2008): 518. 83. Steven M. Stowe, review of The Promise of the New South: Life after Reconstruction, by Edward L. Ayers, American Historical Review 98, no. 3 (1993): 951.

Chapter One

Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness Some Consequences of Administrational Subterfuge

One issue Congress dealt with during the late Reconstruction period was “how to secure adequate civil and political rights for the freedmen.” 1 To successfully suppress black Americans, it seems to have been the white majority’s goal to limit access to the ballot. 2 This was achieved by the states “fixing the qualifications of voters.” 3 Only until after the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which changed politics at the national level, black Americans became politically powerful. 4 To help understand the ninety-five year interregnum, J. Morgan Kousser asked these questions pertaining to enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment: How wide was congressional power under Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment? Did it grant Congress almost unlimited control over local, state, and federal elections, as Democrats and many Radicals agreed during the 1869 debates? In particular, did it authorize Congress to prohibit individuals from interfering with the right to vote of other individuals, and could Congress regulate all elections in an attempt to eliminate fraud? Or was Section 2 essentially meaningless, as Democrats claimed whenever Congress considered bills to implement the Fifteenth Amendment after it had passed? To what degree did the Fifteenth Amendment, combined with the Fourteenth, constitute a national guarantee of fundamental rights—including the right to be protected by state governments against violence—that might be enforced by courts as well as by Congress? 5

Beginning with the disfranchisement movement in 1890, the poll tax and literacy tests were responsible for most of the political corruption going into 15

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the twentieth century. Repealing the poll tax was another issue before Congress. Those who opposed the poll tax claimed that the tax actually prevented citizens in Southern states from voting. Specifically, “It was adopted to disfranchise Negroes, and that it was administered more to their disadvantage than to the disadvantage of the whites.” 6 The New York Times reported that to avoid racial discriminatory practices, the South should create legal restrictive measures for both black and white races: The political evils arising from Negro suffrage could be cured if any Southern State could be brought to impose a qualification for voters, which should apply equally to voters of both races. It is ignorance and improvidence that are dangerous, not black ignorance and black improvidence. An education test or a property test, or a combination of both, would insure the elimination from politics of these dangerous evils, and so long as the tests were impartial and impartially applied, there could be no ground of complaint in the enforcement of such a test. 7

During the disfranchising era, the poll tax was one common disfranchising measure against poor black Americans. Supporters of the poll tax argued that the requirement “prevented ignorant, corrupt, and disinterested citizens from voting.” 8 Further, the tax “helped to preserve the purity of the ballot box, instead of causing political corruption.” 9 Southern states “adopted a poll tax suffrage requirement, commencing with Florida in 1889 and ending with Georgia in 1908.” 10 Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas were really the only Southern states that used the tax as their major method of legalized disfranchisement. The justification for adopting the poll tax and other disfranchising measures “was a desire to find a legal basis for Negro disfranchisement both to preserve white supremacy.” 11 Moreover, literacy tests were more popular and easy to use since most black Americans were illiterate at the time. This method naturally discouraged black Americans from even going to the polls. 12 When trying to understand these disfranchising measures, Chris Brenam asked: Did these measures stem primarily from white supremacists’ wish to curtail the black vote, or were they equally intended to disfranchise poor whites in an effort to suppress the challenge of agrarian third parties? Did they aim chiefly to secure Democrats’ hold on the state or local governments? Were they, as some Democrats at the time suggested, sincere efforts to eliminate election fraud or, instead, intended to counter calls for federal oversight of elections? 13

After the Reconstruction era, defending Southern interests was successful in national politics because of congressional use of the filibuster. According to Dewey Grantham, “The massive influence of that deviant subculture upon national party politics and policy outputs has scarcely run its course a century after Appomattox.” 14 One reason being for the subculture in national politics

Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness

17

was because of white unity. Influential politicians made sure that their friends were in charge of local elections. 15 Basically, the spokespersons in the communities were “county-seat elites.” 16 So then, by the turn of the century most black Americans had been removed from political participation. 17 According to Attorney General Alphonso Taft, black Americans’ right to vote was taken away because they could not intellectually articulate their political concerns: Without denying the inconvenience of having a large population of unintelligent voters, it is enough to say that the colored citizens have, under the Constitution, a clear title to the ballot, of which I know no fair or practicable way to deprive them. It is the duty of those who are more intelligent to aid in putting into operation a system of popular education which shall reach every class in every state. Universal education of the voting people, both white and colored, is essential to the safety of our republican government. No time should be lost in furnishing ample opportunities to every American citizen, of whatever complexion, race, or condition, to acquire sufficient mental and physical training to vote and to fight with intelligence. 18

In 1890, state disfranchisement movement followed this particular sequence: Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, Louisiana, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Texas and Georgia. 19 In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, while the poll tax was only one of several methods of disfranchisement, there were other strategies. To increase the quantum of cruelty, additional suffrage restrictive provisions included: residency requirements, registration, and property ownership in place of the ability to read and write. Then there was something called the understanding clauses, which stated that “although a person could not read, he could be registered to vote if he understood and explained any section of the state, and sometimes the United States, constitution, when read to him by the registration officer.” 20 Lastly, conviction for crimes also disqualified one from voting. 21 Within the party politics, Republicans would punish the South for disfranchisement by cutting Southern representation in Congress, perhaps by ten or twelve seats. For example, one local newspaper reported: There will certainly be renewed agitation at this session of Congress of the proposition advanced last session to cut down the representation in the House of the Southern States which disfranchise the Negro . . . Some recent figures promulgated by the census bureau will be used in the propaganda. They relate to the number of males of voting age in the Southern States, as counted by the census enumerators. These figures are compared with the number of Republican votes counted in those States, and deductions drawn which would seem to indicate that some Negro votes are overlooked in the deal . . . The census figures make interesting reading for those concerned in the contemplated pro-

18

Chapter 1 ceedings. All the Southern States making a showing in the census figures reflecting either upon the interest Negro takes in his franchise or possible the interest someone else takes in his franchise. 22

Cutting representation was meaningful to the South since sometimes the number of seats in Congress exceeded more than twenty. Although the South was fairly represented in Congress, reducing Southern Representation remained because the disfranchisement numbers were exceedingly high: In Alabama in 1900 there were 181,471 male Negroes of voting age. In the congressional elections of 1898 the republican vote counted in all the districts aggregated 15,654. Alabama’s new constitution disfranchises a portion of the Negro population, the illiterates. The census returns show, however, that there were 73,133 literate Negroes in the state who will be entitled to vote . . . Louisiana’s total male Negro population of voting age was 147,348. The total republican vote counted was 2,754. Louisiana has an educational qualification, and the census declares that 57,456 Negroes were literates . . . Mississippi counted 1,227 republican votes, with a voting Negro population of 197,936. There were 92,183 literates among them. 23

Still, for those who could to vote had its advantages. One benefit to voting increased the voting population strength; hence, some believed that the black Americans’ votes was still ineffective: So far as Negro voting is permitted in the south it is upon the condition that it shall be ineffective. The south cannot take chances with effective Negro voting. Neither would the north take chances. When there are enough Chicago Negroes to elect Negro mayors, judges and legislators, even William Hale Thompson will be with the dominant white minority . . . The southern republican vote is so manipulated and controlled by the democrats that it cannot count for president. Occasionally a southern congressional district, in some fringe state, elects a republican congressman. It is so rarely done that it is a piece of news of national interest. The south is solid and the north is solid bone. 24

Further assistance was sought from the Supreme Court. However, the Court did not challenge congressional authority to protect voting rights, but did render its opinion on race and the Fifteenth Amendment: In probably one of the most important race decision in its history, the Supreme Court today annulled as unconstitutional the Oklahoma constitutional amendment and the Annapolis, Md., voters’ qualification law, restricting the suffrage rights of those who could not vote or who whose ancestors could not vote prior to the ratification of the fifteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution. The immediate effect of the court’s decision was to uphold the conviction of two Oklahoma election officials who denied Negroes the right to vote in a congressional election and to award three Maryland Negroes damages from election officials in Annapolis who refused to register them. The court held that these

Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness

19

election officials could not ignore the fifteenth amendment in wiping out of State Constitutions the word “white” as a qualification for voting. In the Maryland case the court’s decision established the point that the fifteenth amendment applies alike to municipal as well as to Federal elections . . . This was said by way of answer to the argument of attorneys for the election officials that the fifteenth amendment was meaningless, because there was no such thing under the American form of government as a right to vote. 25

In all, suffrage conditions in the twentieth century South were also great efforts at the national level: The fourteenth amendment in its second section impliedly permits a State to disfranchise Negroes (and others), provided it accepts the penalty of proportionate reduction of members in the House of Representatives. The fifteenth amendment prohibits any State from disfranchising any person whomsoever on account of race color or previous condition of servitude. So far as the Negro is concerned the second section of the fourteenth amendment was a political compromise against him while the fifteenth amendment is a complete vindication of his political rights. Some of the best lawyers in the South maintain that none of our State constitutions, not even those containing the grandfather clause, are obnoxious to the fifteenth amendment. Still, if that be true, there yet remains the second section of the fourteenth amendment, which provides for a reduction of representation whenever a State denies the suffrage to male citizens of the United States at ears of age for any reason whatever except for crime 26

One of the contradictions of democracy was rested in the practice of disfranchisement, where some believed the “Negro” was a problem. A Northern Editor gave his view on the “Negro problem” in the Weekly Messenger: According to an Alabama colonel, the reason the people want the illiterate Negroes disfranchised in this state is because their votes can be bought, and because they become a football between mercenary political factions. “It is a fact,” said my informant, “that every white man in the black belt commands two negro votes, making his voting strength equal to three ballots. That is why the whites in the northern part of the state want the Negro disfranchised. When this is done, a white voter will have but one vote.” 27

In continuing with disfranchisement, the states were justified in the mass movement to limit franchisement after withdrawing federal troops. Thus, this became the one dominant issue in the twentieth century. The Muskogee Cimeter reported: With defeat staring it in the face, without a real virile issue except those embodied in the “Peeriess One,” democracy is struggling to win in this present campaign, with the Negro vote in the north, and without the Negro vote in the

20

Chapter 1 south. This seems to be the crowning climax of political idiocy. The Negro, disfranchised in the South by the Democratic Party, is expected to lick the hand that smites him, execute an about-face movement, and aid the democrats in swinging republican states of the north into the hands of his democratic oppressors! From the days of its birth, the Democratic Party has not only halted its boasted democracy at the color line, but has bragged about it. There is not a in [sic] won the statute books today for the benefit and protection of the Negro that was not placed there by Republicans in spite of the opposition of the democrats. 28

Now, to ensure black voters would not have an equal balance of power, some felt at the end of the nineteeth century it was necessary to completely disfranchise the black voter. The Daily Public Ledger reported, “ . . .But our constitution will permit the disfranchisement of the ignorant, depraved, lazy, vicious, and debauched negro, and this disfranchisement should be accomplished to the end that our free institutions may not suffer.” 29 The Salt Lake Tribune reported: There is a considerable movement in the Southern States, which may at any time become general, in favor of the repeal of the Fifteenth amendment to the Constitution. And, as there appears no way to enforce it, the question is whether it is worthy any one’s while to oppose such repeal. It has become such a settled proposition in this country that the Southern people are to be left alone to deal with the negro question in their own way; that the North will, neither by court process nor political requirement, interfere with the laws and constitutions under which negro disfranchisement is effected, it now appears to be an idle irritant to maintain the Fifteenth amendment. Why should there be any insistence in maintaining it, since it serves no practical purpose? 30

Although, the Grandfather clause was adopted in state constitutions, it was ruled unconstitutional as two mid-west newspapers reported: The Minneapolis Journal: The grandfather clause, a favorite device in the south for excluding poor or ignorant negroes from exercise of the right of suffrage without at the same time excluding poor or ignorant whites, has been found unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court . . . The St. Louis Republic reported: No man with a spark of common sense will condemn a state for attempting to safeguard its community life against the perils of the ballot in the hands of illiterate blacks; the only pits is that the framers of the provisions in question did not see that illiteracy is a peril to the state, no matter what the color of the skin of the illiterate. 31

Among other racial matter, it appears that the demeaning image of blacks seemed to be the central problem of the time. At best, educating whites was necessary to ameliorate racism, but the race problem seemed settled according to one report:

Protecting Local Credos, Protecting Whiteness

21

In practically all the southern states the Negro vote at elections is so small as to be negligible-except as it provokes white people to vote the other way. The only way the Negro vote counts in the south is in Republican primaries and conventions . . . The votes of southern Negroes do not carry elections. There are not enough of them, and they repel other votes . . . There are many Negroes in the south, but few of them vote, and their side always loses. 32

Although the Fifteenth Amendment was suppose to serve as the one principle undergirding twentieth century society, racism was at the pinnacle of social problems in the South: . . .but the elimination of the Negro voter was only one of the promised not a whit less [sic] clearly and unmistakably the elimination of the political evils that came into our political life with the advent of Negro suffrage. Before Negro suffrage, election frauds were unknown, and in 1900 we were promised that with the Amendment’s virtual undoing of Negro suffrage, trickery and fraud should cease. Before Negro suffrage, our candidates discussed live political issues and gave their attention to measures calculated to build up our Commonwealth, and we were promised that with the virtual undoing of Negro suffrage, the race issue would be shelved and we should have the old-time fairness, and discussion of matters affecting the development of the State and the prosperity of its people. Before Negro suffrage, no man was abused or ostracized because of his political affiliations, and we were promised that with the virtual undoing of Negro suffrage, there should like freedom of action and another era of peace and good feeling. 33

To reinforce and perpetuate white supremacy, both Klan-influenced government officials and private actors prevented black Americans from voting. 34 Some government officials joined private actors and aided the quest for “Negro disfranchisement.” 35 Those who were attracted to the Klan either “sympathized its objectives, feared retaliation upon themselves if opposed, feared accusations of treason to the South and white race.” 36 For others, they protected the organization to “advance its works.” 37 Essentially, federal intervention was necessary. 38 However, since no intervention took place, it seems as if changes in the lives of black Americans began when most Senators from the early twentieth century died, were defeated, or retired.” 39 NOTES 1. William Christian Gerichs, “The Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History 9, no. 3 (1913): 131. 2. Robert McKay, “Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process,” 103. 3. Ibid. 4. Mark Rush, ed., Voting Rights and Redistricting in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 139. 5. J. Morgan Kousser, Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 18.

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6. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South (University of Alabama Press, 1958), vii. 7. “The Negro Question,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 1890. 8. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South, vii. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 281. 11. Ibid. 12. Chris M. Branam, “Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888–1894,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2010): 1. 13. Chris M. Branam, “Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888–1894,” 1. 14. Dewey Grantham, The Life and Death of the Solid South: A Political History (Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), xii. 15. Ibid., 6. 16. Earl Black and Merle Black, Politics and Society in the South (Harvard University Press, 1989), 25. 17. Dewey Grantham, The Life and Death of the Solid South, 204. 18. C. Vann Woodward, Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (New York, 1951), 115–16. 19. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South, 2. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 4. 22. “To Fuss About Southern Vote,” The Newberry Herald and News (Newberry, SC), Nov. 29, 1901. 23. “What Elections Return Show,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), Nov. 23, 1901. 24. “Claim South was Overrepresented in G.O.P. Meeting,” The Bystander (Des Moines, Iowa), July 9, 1920. 25. “Supreme Court Gives Important Race Decisions,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, VA), June 22, 1915. 26. “Suffrage in the South,” The Houston Daily Post (Houston, TX), March 29, 1902. 27. “Northern Editor Gives His Views on the Negro Problem,” The Weekly Messenger (St. Martinsville, LA), April 4, 1903. 28. “Democratic Hypocrisy,” The Muskogee Cimeter (Indian Territory, OK), Oct. 30, 1908. 29. “Democrat Advocates Disfranchisement,” Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY), Oct. 9, 1908. 30. The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT), Sept. 1, 1907. 31. “Grandfather Clause,” Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), June 26, 1915. 32. “The Race Problem Settled,” The Topeka State Journal (Topeka, KS), Aug. 26, 1912. 33. “The Constitutional Amendment and its Results,” The Progressive Farmer (Winston, NC), Nov. 11, 1902. 34. Donald Holley, “A Look Behind the Masks: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Monticello, Arkansas,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 60, no. 2 (2001): 131. 35. Allen Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction, Louisiana ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), xi. 36. Ibid., xii. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Jack Bass and Walter Devries, The Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 372.

Chapter Two

The “Do-Nothing Congresses” Legal Efforts Met with Failure

Much of the political violence in the era was “racially and politically inspired.” 1 Although the Fifteenth Amendment attempted to guarantee black Americans’ rights “within the accepted federal framework set forth in the Constitution,” 2 federal enforcement was only temporary with the 1870 Enforcement Acts. However, after they were repealed, relying on enforcement was at the state and local level. However, that did not work because many states adopted illegal practices diluting black Americans’ their political rights. 3 Therefore, “It was simply was not a punishable offense in the eyes of many whites to attack or even kill a Negro.” 4 In other words, “Klansmen repeatedly attacked Negroes for no other stated offense than voting, or intending to vote, the Republican ticket.” 5 The case for federal enforcement to voting restrictions drew out of congressional unresponsiveness. 6 The reestablishment of white supremacy after the Reconstruction era marked the beginning of subjugation to black voting rights. 7 The result was a period of Southern Democrats dominating politics, extending well into the middle of the twentieth century. 8 According to Garth Pauley, “Although the era began with a legislative effort to expand and strengthen previous civil rights measures and enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, it was marked primarily by systematic efforts in the South to end black American electoral participation. When the courts declared some of the discriminatory practices unconstitutional in the era, Southern states switched to new practices not covered by the law.” 9 Senator John Sherman of Ohio was elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives in 1854, and served until elected in 1861 to fill the Senate seat vacated by Salmon P. Chase. 10 His constitutional theories regarding the Fifteenth Amendment meant interpreting and applying it in an effective way 23

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Chapter 2

to enfranchise black Americans. “Otherwise, Democratic judges who enforce the election laws in the different States will cover themselves under this construction of the Constitution, and the Fifteenth Amendment will be practically disregarded in every community where there is a strong prejudice against Negro voting,” he said. 11 One reason election fraud occurred was due to black Americans’ literacy rates. For example, data shows: It is significant that in 1890, 69 percent of more of the adult Negroes in seven southern states which adopted these tests were illiterate (Alabama, 78 percent; Louisiana, 77 percent; Georgia, 75 percent; Mississippi, 74 percent; South Carolina, 73 percent; North Carolina, 70 percent, Virginia, 69 percent). These percentages were much higher than comparable figures for white illiteracy (Alabama, 19 percent; Louisiana, 19 percent; Georgia, 17 percent; Mississippi, 13 percent; South Carolina, 18 percent; North Carolina, 25 percent; Virginia, 15 percent). 12

Those who supported the Federal Elections Bill militantly argued that enforcing black Americans’ right to vote was the responsibility of national government. However, when the Federal Elections Bill was filibustered, political violence increased. The Department of Justice also made excuses and did not do enough to help eliminate racial discrimination from Southern voter registration offices. As recorded, “Federal officials relied upon private conversations and negotiation and employed actual force only when all other means of obtaining obedience to the law had failed.” Justice Department officials “moved with caution rather than alacrity.” Activists soon became impatient and frustrated at “the lack of federal response to the shootings, burnings, and beatings that occurred throughout the Deep South.” 13 By the early twentieth century, disfranchisement was fixed in Southern state governance. For example, the 1902 Virginia constitutional convention was called solely for the purpose of eliminating the black American vote. Senator Carter Glass led the convention in achieving this goal by creating new requirements for voting. All voters would have to pay a poll tax and pass a literacy test. 14 By the time the South Carolina convention met in 1895, the Democratic leadership of Mississippi had similar constitutional disfranchising methods. Similarly, by the end of 1900, thirty-years after the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment, Louisiana and North Carolina amended their state constitutions to disfranchise a large number of black Americans, and Alabama and Virginia were in the process of their own disfranchising conventions. 15 The poll tax was indeed “the most effective instrumentality of Negro disfranchisement.” 16 By 1908, all Southern states made the poll tax a suffrage prerequisite. 17 Historically, Republicans always held political success and had been involved in the affairs of the nation. However in the early twentieth century, Republican leaders abandoned black American voters and their civil rights:

The “Do-Nothing Congresses”

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The recognized Republican Party in the South has become nothing more than a few white officeholders and referees, with a few more whites expecting office or Federal patronage, given color by a handful of hired Negroes. The Democrats have driven the colored people from the polls, while this administration has driven them from Republican caucuses and conventions . . . The Republican party has abandoned the fifteenth amendment, which is the birthright of the freedman of the Negro race, and this administration has condoned the crime and consummated it by driving them out of the Republican party and the United States army. The Republican party of Horace Greeley and Whitelaw Reid no longer exists and the colored voters. North and South, no longer owe allegiance to the party which ventures still to call Itself Republican. The “lily white” party is a monstrosity unless it becomes a wing of the partisan Democracy. Secretary Taft is pledged to permit the Negro vote to be suppressed. The Ohio convention which presented him for the Presidential nomination adopt a resolution as follows: “Believing as we do that this marvelous progress in intelligence, industry, and good citizenship baa earned the respect and encouragement of nation, and that those legislative enactments that have for their real aim his disfranchisement for reasons of color alone are unfair, un-American and repugnant to the supreme law of the land, we favor the reduction of representative in Congress and the electoral college in all States of this Union where white and colored citizens are disfranchised, to the end that the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States may be enforced according to its letter and spirit. 18

Despite the status quo, each black voter held potential voting power. However, it was a goal not to balance that voting power with whites: The question which this correspondent discusses is how far the national Republican Party and the party in the individual northern states would be affected if the Negro vote should be diverted to the Democratic Party. Ever since the war the Negroes have voted in a body and always with the republicans, whether at the south or at the north. It was always safe for the republicans to count each and every Negro voter for their side . . . We had not regarded the negro vote as a factor in any of the northern states, and had certainly not looked upon it as holding the balance of power as between the republican and the democratic party. The Sun’s correspondent makes it very clear however, that the Negro vote in some of the doubtful states of the north is a matter of prime importance to the republicans, and that being the case it is not strange that the republican leaders should be considerate of their dark-skinned allies. The Negro vote in the south has been a hindrance rather than a help to the Republican Party, but the Negro vote in some of the northern border states is a different proposition. 19

Since the Republican Party’s political agenda was noted extremism, its disloyalty to civil rights undermined it: The Republican Party leaders are nothing but a lot of hypocrits [sic] and opportunists. They have no principles, but are held together by the same mo-

26

Chapter 2 tives that hold a band of robbers or pirates together. The position taken by Senator Cullom in reference to eliminating the Negro vote in the South by law, while protecting the Negro vote in certain Northern States, amply proves the above assertions. Senator Cullom says he “satisfied that if the Negro was not a factor in the politics of the South, there wouldn’t be a State in that section which would not be in line without party, and which would not support our candidates and their principles.” Thus believing that the Negro is a stumbling block to the advancement of the Republican Party in the South, Senator Cullom and the other Republican leaders want the right to vote taken from him so as the Republican Party can grow. 20

Suffrage activists quite actually spent less time with local resistance to vote, and more time becoming fighting at the national level: W. Calvin Chase, editor of a Negro newspaper in Washington, is organizing a Negro movement against Roosevelt and Taft. He says that the time has come for the Negro to assert his power in politics and to that end organized endeavor has begun “such as never has been undertaken before.” He regards President Roosevelt and Secretary Taft as enemies of the Negro race, while Senator Foraker is esteemed as their friend. He says the Negroes owe it to themselves to aid Foraker, and to “help in every way to rebuke Roosevelt and Taft.” “I have no hesitancy in saying,” he concludes, “that if the convention does not hearken to us I will place the picture of the democratic candidate for president on the first page of the Bee, and the organized negro vote will be thrown to him. It is no party fight that we are making.” 21

Seemingly, the crux of the matter centered on trying to answer the race problem, that is, frictional lines between blacks and whites, but this was an inconclusive twentieth century debate: The solidarity of the south isn’t a matter of economic or politics. It’s a matter of color—a black and white question. The preponderance of blacks, the fear of a black man’s government over whites, and most of all the hourly dread that some white woman relative may be horribly outraged by a brutal Negro, are responsible for the suppression of the Negro vote, the intensity of a racial hatred and justice by Judge Lynch. 22

Booker T. Washington, a legendary educator, who studied race relations, understood the matter best and disfavored the South handling black Americans’ voting as well as civil rights: The south has over and over said to the north and her representatives have repeated it in congress, that if the north and the federal government would hands off, the south would deal justly and fairly with the Negro. The prayer of the south has been almost wholly answered. The world is watching the south as it has never done before. Not only have the north and the federal congress practically agreed to leave the matter of the negro’s citizenship in the hands of

The “Do-Nothing Congresses”

27

the south, but many conservative and intelligent negroes in recent years have advised the negro to cast his lot more closely with the southern white man and to cease a continued senseless opposition to his interests. This policy has gained ground to such an extent that the white man controls practically every state and every country and township in the south. 23

Malcolm Patterson, a congressman from Tennessee offered his thoughts about the political state in the South aftet the war: The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution was conceived in an hour of passion and designed as an act of vengeance. It was a cruel penalty inflicted by an inflamed for upon a fallen and beaten adversary. It chained the South to a corpse. It created and held prominent false and meretuicious issues before the country. It was a gift which the Negro did not know how to intelligently use, and its only effect has been to breed false notions of social equality and to provke swift retribution and bloody violence. 24

George White, a congressman from North Carolina asked for simple voting justice and spoke about the discord between blacks and whites: If we are unworthy of suffrage, if it is necessary to maintain white supremacy, if it is necessary for the Anglo-Saxon to sway the scepter in those States, then you ought to have the benefit only to those who are allowed to vote, and the poor men, whether they be black or white, who are disfranchised ought not to go into the representation of the district or the State . . . The chord that exists between some of the whites and the blacks of the South can not be severed by all of the bloody assassins of the world. But you have got the wrong conception. You have got the idea that any means that will disfranchise him and prevent him from exercising the rights which are given him under the Constitution is legitimate, that the end justifies the means. It is a wrong conception of a civilized government. It is the wrong conception of American citizenship, and the sooner we all reach the conclusion that we are here together, here to live and here to die, the better for all concerned, because the black man is here to stay for all time to come. 25

Nevertheless, though for some who point the finger back at Republican leaders believed not at all of them were enemies of black Americans. Even after the party’s disloyalty to civil rights, some still believed it was their duty: If a remedy is ever found it must proceed from the patriotism of the Southern people themselves, and their sense of fair dealing. They profess to be honorable men, and are believed to be such. They will yield no political advantage when it seems to them necessary to the preservation of their peace and good order to retain it. Under like circumstances we would do the same. They are as well aware as we are that their conduct in suppressing the Negro vote is not only unlawful and revolutionary, but unfair in the highest degree to the other States. 26

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Moorfield Storey, a prominent leader, fought on behalf of the causes of civil rights and especially spoke out about the injustices of voting: But there was bad government in the South, reckless extravagance, an orgy of corruption after Negro suffrage was granted. It is true that for a few years, beginning in 1868 and ending at various times up to 1876, corrupt men chosen by Negro votes controlled the Southern States. Whose fault was that? New voters were misled and voted for dishonest men. They were misled in most cases by dishonest Southern white men, and this was made possible because the honest Southern white men in disgust refused to lead them right, or to exercise their just influence. 27

Regardless of the framers intent in the Fifteenth Amendment to protect black suffrage, taking away their suffrage seemed an effortless prcocess: That the suppression of the Negro franchise by direct or indirect means is in contravention of the spirit and intent of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States hardly admits of doubt. The evident intent of the Constitution is that the colored people shall have the right of suffrage on an equal footing with the white people. The intent of the provisions of the State Constitutions in question, as avowed by many Southern men is that the colored people shall not vote. 28 To discuss the visionary colonization scheme or the equally impossible repeal of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments means, therefore, not only to squander time and breath, but to divert the popular mind from the true problem and from the real possibilities of its solution. It must, to start with, be taken as a certainty that the Negroes will stay here and that the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments will stand, and if they are to be made inoperative at all, it must be by means of a sort of tricky stratagem in flagrant violation of the spirit of the Constitution. Such stratagems are usually not approved by conscientious persons, and they cannot be resorted to by a people without a mischievous lowering of the standard of public morals and an impairment of self-respect. 29

Interestingly, some congressional advocates of black Americans’ suffrage believed the Fifteenth Amendment was altogether inadequate. Specifically, they believed that Southern states would establish voter qualifications that were not racially discriminatory, but were particularly designed to exclude black Americans from voting. On the contrary, lawmakers believed that a broad voting amendment would weaken states’ rights by giving the national government the power to “create the voter.” 30 The struggle for voting became more arduous in the early twentieth century. The end of the grandfather clause was not enough, since other methods still kept black Americans from safely casting their ballots. Then, there were other means of voter discrimination: slow processing of voter registration forms, and relocation of polling places without prior notification to them. 31 For this reason, voting rights

.

The “Do-Nothing Congresses”

29

advocates began to call on action by the other two branches of the federal government. In their view, it was absolutely necessary to enforce black Americans’ rights guaranteed by the Fifteenth Amendment. 32 NOTES 1. Allen Trelease, White Terror, xxxiv. 2. Ibid., xxxviii. 3. Charles Zelden, Voting Rights On Trial : A Sourcebook with Cases, Laws, and Documents (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2004), 25. 4. Allen Trelease, White Terror, xliii. 5. Ibid., xlvii. 6. Kenny Whitby, The Color of Representation: Congressional Behavior and Black Interests (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 3. 7. Ibid., 21. 8. Terrel Rhodes, Republicans in the South: Voting for the State House, Voting for the White House (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000), 2. 9. Garth Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 44. 10. John Sherman, http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Featured_Bio_Sherman.htm. 11. Congressional Globe, 41 Cong. 2 sess., 1870, pt. 4:3568. 12. James Thomas Tucker, The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots: Language Minorities and Political Access Under the Voting Rights Act (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 13. 13. Amy Louise Wood, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 19 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 43. 14. John Pinkard, African American Felon Disenfranchisement: Case Studies in Modern Racism and Political Exclusion (Lfb Scholarly Pub Llc, 2013), 135. 15. J. Morgan Kousser, Colorblind Injustice, 13. 16. Ibid., 35. 17. Ibid. 18. “Chandler Sees Trick,” Daily Press (Newport News, VA), May 15, 1908. 19. “The Negro Vote,” The Semi-Weekly Messenger (Wilmington, NC), Jan. 9, 1903. 20. “Nothing but Hypocrits [sic],” The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), Nov. 11, 1909. 21. “Republicans and the Negro Vote,” The Commoner (Lincoln, NE), Oct. 25, 1907. 22. “The Race Problem in the North,” The Day Book (Chicago, IL), Nov. 9, 1912. 23. Booker T. Washington, “The Hardwick Bill: An Interview in the Atlanta Constitution,” 1900. 24. Malcolm R. Patterson, “A Review of Southern History and a Plea for the Political Independence of the South” (speech of Hon. Malcolm R. Patterson, of Tennessee, in the House of Representatives, Monday, March 14, 1904). 25. George H. White, “Army Reorganization” (speech of Hon. George H. White, of North Carolina, in the House of Representatives, Thursday, January 26, 1899). 26. D. K. Tenney, “Negro Suffrage South: A Republican Admonishes the Republican Party,” 1891. 27. Moorfield Storey, “Negro suffrage is not a failure” (an address before the New England Suffrage Conference March 30, 1903). 28. Carl Schurz, “Can the South Solve the Negro Problem?” 1903. 29. Ibid. 30. Garth E. Pauley, LBJ’s American Promise, 29. 31. Ibid., 35. 32. Ibid.

Chapter Three

The Wrong Kind of Politics Disfranchisement Proceeds Apace

Basically, disfranchisement was successful because the national government would not “castigate the Klan.” 1 The organization was successful in both local and national politics. For instance, “At the precinct level the Klan was not only a potent political force, it was the electorate. Whole police departments were composed of Klansmen and the municipal committees were composed of Klansmen and the mayor and the dog catcher, if not Klansmen too, were dependent upon Klansmen’s favor.” 2 After the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, the national government “made almost no effort to enforce the law against the Klan.” 3 One purpose of the organization was to “deprive the Negro of his rights and to overthrow the Republican Party when he had extended and sought to maintain those rights.” 4 In 1889, the fundamental problem of the century was the “Southern question,” which meant figuring out how to “reinstate full suffrage rights for black southerners.” 5 State constitutions were written in such a way that they “nullified or negated the impact of any new federal elections law.” 6 Essentially, this Southern question caused conflicts about the constitutional source for black Americans’ rights, which in turn, led to purposeful discriminatory policies and practices. Moreover, Southern Democrats easily “controlled Southern state and local governments.” 7 Soon, “Civil rights abuses and racial injustices became common in the South.” 8 The Southern question was one that “the federal government ignored since the end of Reconstruction.” 9 In the third session of the Fortieth Congress, Senator Oliver Morton of Indiana argued that the second section enabled the Fifteenth Amendment authority for congressional regulation to black Americans’ voting rights: 31

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Chapter 3 Now, sir, what is the spirit and true intent of the fifteenth amendment, as we all remember it when it passed in this Chamber, as will be shown by the Congressional Globe? It is that the colored man, so far as voting is concerned, shall be placed upon the same level and footing with the white man, and that Congress shall have the power to secure him that right. We know that the second section was put there for the purpose of enabling Congress itself to carry out the provision. It was not to be left to state legislation; it was put there for the purpose of enabling Congress to take every step that might be necessary to secure the colored man in the enjoyment of these rights. 10

Those who participated in the disfranchisement movement insisted it was necessary to disfranchise the Negro to “purify the electoral process.” 11 However, those against it maintained that intimidation, ballot-box manipulation, and other dishonest election methods “reached out beyond the bounds of politics and tainted the whole society.” 12 A couple of Southern newspapers emphasized why it was also necessary to purify the elections. According to the Richmond Times, “It is more courageous and honorable and better for public morals and good government to come out boldly and disfranchise the Negro than to make a pretense of letting him vote and then cheating him at the polls.” 13 In Alabama, the Birmingham News reported that “the youth of the state were being taught that cheating in elections was excusable, and this was leading on to dishonesty in commercial and social life.” 14 Edward Morrell, a congressman from Pennsylvania, gave a lengthy speech in reference to black suffrage: That Congress be requested and be respectfully urged to investigate with thoroughness and impartiality the charges of a suppression of votes contrary to the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and in every case where such restriction is accomplished by a limitation of the franchise for any reason the representation of such State in Congress be reduced, and also to see that the fifteenth amendment be in no way violated either directly or by subterfuge; and (2) that where the decisions of the courts or the practices at elections disclose the fact that the statutes are inadequate, amendatory acts be passed remedying the defects disclosed. 15 The class of men whose views are thus hastily summarized do not contemplate the withdrawal of the suffrage from the negro without a corresponding reduction in the representation in Congress of the States where the negro is a large factor in the apportionment. And yet it is quite probable that they have not given thought to the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of compassing that end. Under the Constitution, as it is now construed, the diminution of representative strength could only result from the States passing such laws as would disfranchise the negro by some educational or property test, as it is forbidden by the fifteenth amendment to disfranchise him on account of this race. But no Southern State will do this, and for two reasons: First, they will in no event consent to a reduction of representative strength; and, second, they could not make any disfranchisement of the Negro that would not at the same time disfranchise an immense number of whites. 16

The Wrong Kind of Politics But, while discussing the question of the disfranchisement of the Negro, and settling its justice or expediency according to our discretion, it may be worth while to look at its impracticability or, to state it still more strongly, its impossibility. Logicians attach weight to arguments drawn ab inconvenienti. Arguments must be still more cogent and conclusions still more decisive when drawn ab impossibili. The Negro is secure against disfranchisement by two constitutional amendments, and he cannot be remanded to the nonvoting class until both these amendments are annulled. And these amendments can not be annulled until two--thirds of the Senate and two--thirds of the House of Representatives of the United States shall propose, and a majority in the legislatures or conventions of twenty--nine States shall by affirmative vote approve, the annulment. In other words, the negro can not be disfranchised so long as one vote more than one--third in the United States Senate or one vote more than one--third in the House of Representatives shall be recorded against it, and if these securities and safeguards should give way, then the disfranchisement could not be effected so long as a majority in one branch in the legislatures of only ten States should refuse to assent to it and refuse to assent to a convention to which it might be referred. No human right on this continent is more completely guaranteed than the right against disfranchisement on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, as embodied in the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. 17 That amendment conferred no right of any kind. It was only intended to restrain the States and the United States from denying or abridging the right of suffrage on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The words are: “The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” This is but an additional covenant between the States, imposing restraints and obligations upon themselves, and of course takes its place alongside other similar constitutional provisions restraining the power of the States. No State, under this provision of the Constitution, can make any discrimination as to the right of suffrage within its limits “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude:” nor has any State, South or North, within the knowledge of the undersigned, made any such discrimination. 18 The Negro ought to have been given the franchise if capable by nature of exercising it. If not, it ought not to have been conferred, and ought to be withdrawn. Hence the two questions presented are but one in substance. It ought to surprise no one that this question is likely to occupy the public attention again. The subject of the abolition of slavery occupied the public mind during many ears, and was thoroughly discussed before it was acted upon; and no one now denies the wisdom of the decision made upon it. But the question of Negro suffrage was discussed very little before the people prior to its decision: and neither the Congress which proposed nor the legislatures which adopted the amendment were elected with reference to the question. And this is equally true of the congress which passed the reconstruction act by which Negro suffrage was imposed upon the Confederate States, and by which the adoption of both the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments was secured. 19 It is not yet ten years since the right to vote was conferred upon the Negro by constitutional provision. That period is too short to allow such test of the

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Chapter 3 wisdom of the measure as would justify its abrogation. The constitutional amendment is supposed to have been the deliberate and well-- considered act of the people. It must not be regarded as an ordinary legislative measure, to be repealed or modified for light and transient causes. To make such a change of the Constitution because an election in one section of the country has not resulted as some might have desired or expected is to treat the most solemn act of the people with contempt, and to weaken the force and impair the authority of the Constitution itself. Opposition to Negro enfranchisement ten years ago does not now require an effort to strike the fifteenth amendment from the Constitution. 20 Negro suffrage being thus made a necessity by the obduracy of those who were in control of the South, it became a subsequent necessity to adopt the fifteenth amendment. Nothing could have been more despicable than to use the Negroes to secure the adoption of the fourteenth amendment and then leave them exposed to the hazard of losing suffrage whenever those who had attempted to reenslave them should regain political power in their Stats. Hence the fifteenth amendment, which never pretended to guarantee universal suffrage, but simply forbade that any man should lose his vote because he had once been a slave, or because his face might be black, or because his remote ancestors came from Africa. 21

Following Morrell’s theme and echoing much of his rhetoric, other national and local newspapers fostered awareness about disfranchisement. The disfranchisement movement, a system that affected hundreds of black American voters, was of no concern to the national government to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. For example the Marshall Republican reported: Negro disfranchisement goes merrily on in several of the Southern States. It will go itsfull length, unless stopped by constitutional inhibition. Congress may take a hand, tosome extent at least, at its next session. The enfranchisement of the Negro race by constitutional amendment was made by the Government, adopted by the people all over the land, and now it is quite probable that the people will not suffer a defeat of that measure by the fraud and manipulations of the Democratic Party in the Southern States. 22

Much disfranchisement took place through constitutional legerdemain. There was no legislative attack on disfranchisement and no congressional investigation. The Seattle Republican reported about a possible remedy: The Southern states, in violation of the constitution, have disfranchised the Negro race. Congress, in violation of its plain duty, has set quietly by and allowed this to be done. Possibly, except for the fact that it is in violation of law, it is as well so, so far as the great mass of the Negroes in the South are concerned. Possibly, probably, the Fifteenth Amendment was a mistake, just as it is a mistake to allow ignorant foreigners the right of franchise, so soon after landing on our shores. In view of the past inaction of Congress in preventing disfranchisement, there is little to hope for along this line in the near

The Wrong Kind of Politics

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future. It is one of those things that must be endured, and Negroes will best show their fitness for all the privileges of citizenship by quietly submitting; not in despair or unrest, but in a fixed determination to raise themselves to a position where their rights can and must be respected. In this connection the advice of ex-Congressman Wise, of Virginia, is very pertinent. Recognizing the fact that while remaining in great numbers in the Southland it will be difficult to extrioate [sic] themselves from the slough of despond, into which they have been hurled, politically speaking, he advises emigration into other parts of the country. To those who desire the right of suffrage to go to those states which donot discriminate against them. 23

Emphasis on states’ rights and political strategies such as white solidarity in the twentieth century, which inevitably produced racism, actually permitted disfranchisement. The Progressive Farmer also provided its view toward disfranchisement, “We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconstitutionally limited, and if such is the case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral colleges shall be proportionally reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States.” 24 The Omaha Daily Bee reported, “The white man of the south puts a qualification on Negro suffrage in self-defense. There is not a community in the north that would not put on a similar qualification under the same circumstances. The white men in neither the north nor the south will permit a few men to take the solid black vote and use it for the making of money regardless of the interests of the community, as was done by the carpet baggers in the south.” 25 Undeniably, such procedural subterfuges coupled with the Senate filibuster made disfranchisement possible. What some may not know is that disfranchisement also affected black voter registration more than voter turnout. The Indianapolis Journal reported about this political degradation: The responsibility of the disfranchisement of the Negro vote and the practical appeal of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments belongs beyond question to the late Senator James Z. George, of Mississippi. Both the idea and the execution were his. Alone, and at first almost without assistance opposed indeed by the bulk of the Democracy In his State, Senator George made his famous campaign for the legal and Constitutional disfranchisement of the Negro. He stumped every town and hamlet in the State, laying his views before the voters, steadily winning converts to them, and finally triumphing. The Mississippi Legislature, carried away by his arguments, submitted to the people the question of holding a Constitutional convention, authorizing them at the same time to elect delegates to this convention. The preposition was carried by an overwhelming majority, and the convention met in Jackson to frame a new Constitution for the State, to be based on the idea of white supremacy and Negro disfranchisement. 26

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Chapter 3

Additionally, disfranchisement seemed to have a dual goal: first, to enforce suffrage restrictive laws and second, to limit black American voters’ political involvement. The New York City Urban League, a civil rights organization, reported statistics on restricted voting turnout in the South: It is contended that the marked decrease in the average vote for congressmen in the South, from 1892 to 1902, is due primarily to the limitations upon the suffrage, and that these limitations were intended to eliminate the negro vote. It is shown that the average vote for congressmen is smaller in the South than in the two states taken as fair samples of the northern states. It is accordingly asserted, among other things, that the white population of the South is enjoying an unfair advantage, and it is argued that, as such advantage arises from a denial of the right of citizens of the United States to vote, the representation of the South in Congress and in the Electoral College should be reduced. 27

Though limited in political power, black Americans challenged injustices as such in the courts. By doing so, they simultaneously attacked the entire Jim Crow system. Edward Shepard, a northern Democrat, rendered his views on suffrage in the South: This moral deterioration cannot be endured; it must be resisted. Its concrete embodiment in unequal application of the suffrage laws can be directly attacked under clear warrant of Constitutional authority. Is it or is it not practical to enforce the law of the land? In addition to the explicit powers conferred by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the House is final judge of the qualifications of its members. It can, if it chooses, refuse to seat men bearing credentials which are, on their face, the evidence of race discrimination and the suffrage suppressed. Until such remedies are attempted, it is vain to protest that nothing practical is proposed by those who cry out against manifest and inexcusable political wrongs. 28

The poll tax and other bureaucratic restrictions to voting was indeed a national issue because of the “influence exercised in the national government by representatives” from those states guilty of discriminating. For instance, “They point to the number of committee chairmanships held by southerners when Congress was controlled by the Democratic Party.” When this happened, “Representatives were not sympathetic to the social welfare measures” of black Americans. 29 The ability to enforce and solidify white supremacy at the national level became the South’s best protection against federal interference in racial matters such as voting rights. 30 NOTES 1. Arnold Rice, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics (Washington DC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010), iii-iv.

The Wrong Kind of Politics

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2. Ibid. 3. Allen Trelease, White Terror, 385. 4. Ibid., 397. 5. Thomas Upchurch, Legislating Racism, 1. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., 3. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Bernard Schwartz, ed., Statutory History of the United States— Civil Rights Part I (New York: Chelsea House, 1969), 498– 499. 11. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South, 8. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 9 14. Ibid. 15. Edward De V. Morrell, “Negro Suffrage: Should the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments be Repealed?” (speech of Hon. Edward De V. Morrell, of Pennsylvania, in the House of Representatives, April 4, 1904). 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. The Marshall Republican (Marshall, MO), May 10, 1901. 23. “Negro Disfranchisement a Remedy,” The Seattle Republican (Seattle, WA), April 24, 1903. 24. “That Suffrage Plank,” The Progressive Farmer (Winston, NC), June 28, 1904. 25. “How They Love the Negro,” Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), Aug. 1, 1908. 26. “Originator of the Movement,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, IN), Aug. 13, 1900. 27. Francis G. Caffey, “Suffrage limitations at the South,” 1905. 28. Edward M. Shepard, (letters addressed to the Evening Post on the Negro Suffrage Question, August 26 and September 25, 1903). 29. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South, 267. 30. Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 5.

Chapter Four

Voting Rights, Voting Wrongs More Legal Chicanery

Private actors engaged in activities appealing to obtain political power. 1 The Democratic National Convention of 1924 provided one example of how private actors dominated local politics. Numerous political candidates “supported by the Klan won state and local elections, including U.S. Senate races. In 1924, a Klan candidate won the governorship in Kansas and another was defeated in the U.S. Senate race in Montana. Oregon voters elected a Klan endorsed gubernatorial candidate in 1922.” 2 Opposing civil rights legislation “held Southern members of Congress together.” 3 The Senate adopted the position that the states should enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, “Wrongs upon the ballot or interference with the right of suffrage or with the modes of the qualifications of voters are questions which are to be corrected and controlled by the States, and not by the Federal government. Suffrage is under the control of the States, and not of the Federal government.” 4 As the twentieth century was approaching, efforts for franchisement were becoming hopeless. As Vernon Wharton put it, “Altogether rebuffed by unfriendly registrars, frowned on by the mass of the white population, and absolutely forbidden to support any candidates save those of a party based on white supremacy, the Negro voters found it, in the words of one of their leaders, a mighty discouraging proposition. More and more of them as time went on simply abandoned the effort.” 5 In 1940, Senator Theodore G. Bilbo of Mississippi ensured black Americans would not vote and that white supremacy would be carried out, “I want to make it absolutely impossible for the Negro to vote and thus guarantee white supremacy.” 6 In one editorial, the Appeal praised the implantation of the poll tax and the secrecy ballot laws: 39

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Chapter 4 It has been demonstrated beyond all peradventure that the ignorant Negro, he who is the trusted camp follower of the Republicans, cannot be induced to vote. In the first place only a few register, and of these only a few are energetic enough to pay their poll tax. If these preliminaries are attended to, only the intelligent among them can vote. Elections are thrown into the hands of intelligent, taxpaying school supporting classes. Greater than all else, the system has given a practical, Constitutional and happy solution of the race problem, and for this reason The Appeal would earnestly recommend it to the good people of Mississippi, who are about to meet in Jackson for the purpose of making a new Constitution for their State. 7

Essentially, literacy tests restricted undesirable groups such as black Americans from voting. To some, black illiterates were menace to society. Some point to Southern Democrats as responsible for upholding the literacy tests: Democrats also made attempts in primaries to keep up some aspects of the old but now-banned literacy tests: In several counties in Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi there have been reports that election officials have refused to provide or allow adequate assistance to illiterate Negro voters. In addition, illiterate voters in some Southern states have been denied the use of aids to enable them to overcome their lack of literacy. In some areas of Mississippi illiterates have been denied the use of sample ballots even though such use is not prohibited by State law. In Virginia officials have rejected write-in ballots cast by illiterates through the use of gummed labels. 8

According to Stanley Hirshson, “The Negro realized that he could not realistically look to the Southern white man for aid in securing his basic legal rights.” 9 To protect black Americans’ rights, “There would have to be Federal intervention in Southern elections, to prevent intimidation by the whites and to secure fair play.” 10 Arguably, one reason why Southern states adopted suffrage restrictions to disfranchise black Americans because by this time: Federal troops had been withdrawn from the South and congressional reconstruction had come to an end. The former southern leaders or their descendants had regained control from the carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Negroes who had filled offices and wielded political power during the reconstruction period. As these old-time leaders entrenched themselves in power, they turned gradually from illegal to legal, or at least superficially legal, methods of depriving Negroes of political power. 11

More national and local newspapers reported about the practice and spread of disfranchisement. For example, the Colored American reported about the nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment:

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In all Southern States under Democratic control particularly Louisiana Mississippi South Carolina and North Carolina there is a determined effort to deprive the Negro of the benefits of the Fifteenth Amendment and special laws have been enacted for his disfranchisement. The voting population of Louisiana according to census report of 1890 is as follows White 130,748 colored 119,815 yet a constitutional convention was held under the supervision of the Democratic Party a few years ago and the Negro was practically disfranchised. At the last presidential election the Republican vote in Louisiana was only 21,627. The worst cases of Negro disfranchisement are shown in Mississippi and South Carolina where special laws were passed to consummate this end. The following figures show the manner in which a vicious Democracy there ruthlessly sets aside the aim and spirit of the Fifteenth Amendment. Voting population of Mississippi White 120,611 colored 150,469 yet the Republican vote in that State in 1896 amounted to only 4,849. The voting population of South Carolina is as follows White 102,657 colored 132, 849. The Republican vote there in 1906 is recorded as 9,318. In North Carolina there are 233,307 white voters and 109,346 colored. At the recent election held in that State having for it object the elimination of the Negro from politics the Democrats and other unfriendly elements carried the State by a majority of nearly 60,000 as a result of intimidation and fraud. The outcome of said election is the complete disfranchisement of about three fourths of the Nagro [sic] voters there. 12 Illiteracy is claimed by the Democrats of these States as the chief reason for the nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment, but it has been clearly demonstrated in Louisiana and Mississippi that the complexion of the Negro is the paramount cause. No reasonable person objects seriously to an educational qualification in the exercise of the right of suffrage but all lovers of fair play and justice denounce the methods employed by Southern Democrats in their nullification of a portion of our national constitution. In the State of Massachusetts there is an educational test in connection with the election law but said test is applied impartially and without discrimination as regards to rare color or previous condition of servitude. In North Carolina all illiterate white men will be allowed to vote while many intelligent Negroes will ho denied the right of the ballot. In South Carolina there is a certain clause in the State constitution framed especially for the disfranchisement of Negroes. The text of said clause is mainly in Latin and every Negro who presents himself for registration is compelled to render a faithful interpretation of it or be denied the right to cast a ballot. Should the would-be-elector succeed in mastering this test the inspectors or judges of election are still enabled by prejudice and public sentiment there, to pronounce the interpretation incorrect. In Louisiana and Mississippi the election laws are outrageously applied and the Negro is without redress. Alabama Virginia and other Southern States under Democratic rule are contemplating the enactment of laws, having for their object the rejection of the Fifteenth Amendment and the elimination the Negro as a political factor. 13

Where suffrage initiatives by black American voters failed, the politics of disfranchisement continued to deny voters:

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Chapter 4 A simple record of its efforts to defeat the Fifteenth Amendment will present official evidence, that every Democratic Member of Congress, and the Democratic members of every State Legislature in this Union, voted in a solid body against this amendment, as they always have against every other proposition to secure justice and equal rights to all men irrespective of color or previous condition. 14

The Democracy of Ohio took the position regarding the Fifteenth Amendment. Its major principles stated: That we regard the act recently passed by Congress to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, as unconstitutional, unjust and oppressive, an invasion of the rights of the States, subversive of the best interests of the people, and therefore demand its unconditional repeal. 15 Against this simple resolution, declaring the right of Congress to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, every Democratic Member of the House but one, and every Democrat in the Senate voted, unless they dodged altogether. Thirty-two Democrats of the House recorded their votes against enforcing the amendment, and eleven Democratic Senators. Every Republican voted for it. 16

The disfranchisement movement was a thorough mechanism to hindering black political progression was the tool states resorted to most often and relied on for voter suppression: If the disfranchisement of the Negro by the South could settle permanently the Negro question, I think that the action of that section would find its justification in that achievement, according to the Jesuitical principle that the end justifies the means. But can disfranchisement of the Negro settle the Negro question? First: Can it do so for the Negro? Second: Can it do so for the South? Third: Can it do so for the rest of the nation? I do not think that it can do so for the Negro, or for the South, or for the rest of the nation. And unless disfranchisement of the Negro settles this question in its threefold aspect, it will not settle it in such a way that it will long stay settled. If the Negro refuse to abide by such a settlement, the question will not be so settled merely because the South has decided so to settle it. Neither can the South of to-day settle the question by disfranchisement, if disfranchisement of the Negro be found in operation to injure the South of tomorrow much more deeply than it does the Negro. For what is bad for the Negro to-day will be found to be still worse for the South to-morrow. 17 The political power which the South manages to retain in spite of her disfranchisement of the Negro does not, therefore, belong to her. If she deprives the Negro of the right to vote without being deprived in turn of a proportionate share of her representation in Congress, she has possessed herself wrongfully of a power in national politics, in national legislation, which rightfully belongs to the Negro. And this power she may and does exercise against the Negro and the North at the same time. It will be seen by the North some day, as it is seen to-day by the Negro, that while her old rival has lost on paper the old three-fifths slave representation under the Constitution to which

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she was entitled before the war, she has not practically suffered any loss at all in this respect, but the contrary. She has actually gained since the war the other two-fifths in the apportionment of representatives among the States. For five of her disfranchised colored citizens count to-day the same as five Northern voters, instead of the proportion prevailing in ante-bellum times, when it took five slaves to equal three freemen in Federal numbers. 18

Possibly during this time, Southern governments were more about the names of elites rather than actually practicing honest government. Governments in the New South did not appear to serve the people, but make the entire bureaucracy richer: True, we hear voices through the Southern press crying new schemes for avoiding the simple necessities of free government; the establishment of a Negro territory; a disfranchisement of over half the Negroes by an educational qualification at the polls; their total disfranchisement by repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment; and in the very Senate a proposition to deport the Negro to Africa at the national expense, although at the same time and all over the South men in the same party from which the project comes are stating with new frankness their old doctrine that, though the country shall never belong to the Negro, the Negro simply shall belong to the country. But the very forlornness of these absurd projects, built, themselves, on open confessions that the past is a failure and that something different must be done with all speed, is a final admission that the party pledged to solve the Negro question without consulting the Negro feels that it must change its policy or drop from under the nation’s misplaced hopes. 19

For most states, the poll tax was first tried temporarily and then became permanent, retaining as law: In order that you may know what will be demanded of you to vote under the Constitutions and laws of the several Southern States, we give below the substantial requirements of each, to wit:--In Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. YOU MUST PAY YOUR POLL TAX. YOU MUST REGISTER AND HOLD YOUR CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION. If you can read and write you can register. In Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina If you cannot read and write you can register if you own $300 worth of property. In Arkansas and Georgia YOU MUST PAY YOUR POLL TAX. In Florida, Kentucky, Texas and West Virginia. You must reside in the State. A man convicted of almost any crime may be barred from voting . . . You are urged to pay all of your taxes at the required time, and especially your poll tax which is by the Constitution of every Southern State made a special fund for the support of the free public schools. 20

To scare black Americans out of politics, whites and blacks interactions were but few, keeping clear out of each other’s way, but sometimes violent:

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Chapter 4 The old cry that white supremacy may be imperiled [sic] is a travesty on Anglo-Saxon chivalry. With every executive, judicial and legislative office of the State in the hands of white people and with suffrage qualifications that have practically eliminated the Negro from political affairs, the old slogan is the emptiest cant. This is no question for small politicians, but for broad, patriotic statesmen. It is not for non-resident theorists, but for practical publicists; not for academic sentimentalists, but for clear-visioned humanitarians. On a subject of such vital concern to State and nation, passionate declamation and partisan denunciation are to be deplored. Oh, that some patriot may arise, with the prescience of a statesman and the vision of a prophet and the soul of an apostle, who will point out the path of national duty and guide our people to a wise and heaven-approved solution of this mighty problem! 21

Property ownership was another major qualification to possess political rights. Most black Americans also failed to meet these criteria: The open demand in high places for the absolute disfranchisement of the Negro, leaving ten millions of people without hope in the midst of our nation; the argument presented for the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, which would again rend in twain this great nation; the natural discontent resulting from the growing intelligence of the Negro; the reiterated resolutions presented to Congress unfairly representing us to the world of commerce and justice; the demand for the reduction of our representation, are all practical results of the unsettled condition of our franchise. What do we gain by delay? Nothing. We will only miss our opportunity to grasp the decisive moment for action and with the opening of the new era of industrial change to reorganize our franchise system. When it begins and is under way, it is too late. 22 Now, sir, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, “That the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” is as much a part and parcel of the organic law governing this country as any section of the Constitution. Whether wisely or not this amendment was ratified, I will not discuss, but under its provisions the Negro has with you and me an equal right to exercise the franchise. If we are an honest and constitution-loving people, we will give him his constitutional right. His privilege of franchise is as sacred as ours, and should be as sacredly guarded, this is the only principle which should animate the life of a free republic and upon which its continued existence can be predicated. I challenge any transgression whatsoever without ultimate and grevious hurt to the Constitution, and as grave injury to the white man as to the black. It is, I repeat and urge, the most sacred and solemn principle of the Constitution. With whatever earnestness I may have, I declare that this ark of our political covenant, this Constitutional casket of our Confederated Nation, encasing as it does more of human liberty and human security and human life than any government ever founded by man, I would not break for the whole African race. 23

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Clearly, by passing disfranchisement amendments Southern states violated the Constitution. By the same token, Southern Senators and admittedly blocked voting rights legislation throughout the twentieth century. 24 NOTES 1. Leonard Moore, Citizen Klansmen: the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921–1928 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 2. 2. Ibid. 3. Jack Bass and Walter Devries, The Transformation of Southern Politics, 401. 4. Henry Cabot Lodge and T. V. Powderly, “The Federal Election Bill,” North American Review 151, no. 406 (1890): 270. 5. Steven Lawson, Black Ballots, 15. 6. Ibid., 99. 7. Memphis Daily Appeal, Aug. 9, 1890. 8. United States Commission on Civil Rights, “Political Participation,” 1968, p. 70, http:// www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12p753.pdf. 9. Stanley Hirshson, Farewell to the Bloody Shirt Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro 1877–1893 (Quadrangle, 1962), 10. 10. Ibid., 11. 11. Frederic Ogden, The Poll Tax in the South, 5. 12. “Nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment,” The Colored American (Washington, DC), Sept. 29, 1900. 13. Ibid. 14. Union Republican Congressional Committee, “Suffrage and Civil Rights: The Record of the Democracy on the 15th Amendment. The Civil Rights Bill and Bill for the Enforcement of the 15th Amendment. Republicanism and Democracy Contrasted,” Washington, 1872. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Archibald H. Grimké, “Why Disfranchisement is Bad,” July 1904. 18. Ibid. 19. George W. Cable, “The Southern Struggle for Pure Government” (speech delivered before the Massachusetts Club, Boston, on Washington’s birthday, 1890). 20. “To the Colored Men of Voting Age in the Southern States,” [190?]. 21. Charles B. Galloway, “The South and the Negro” (an address delivered at the seventh annual Conference for education in the South, Birmingham, Ala., April 26th, 1904). 22. William A. MacCorkle, “The Negro and the Intelligence and Property Franchise” (address before the Southern Conference on Race Problems, Montgomery, Alabama, May 9, 1900). 23. Ibid. 24. Neal Peirce, The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 1974), 17.

Chapter Five

Ensuing Challenges, Which Way Is to Daylight?

Democrats used two powerful tools to uphold white supremacy in Congress. First, was public opinion, which “favored similar views on the southern race problem.” 1 Second, was the filibuster. After Reconstruction, black Americans began to “grow wary [sic] and weary of political rhetoric that had promised them much and had given them little since the 1870s.” 2 Many realized and accepted the fact “the problem was not so much the politicians’ inability to do something about black suffrage as it was their unwillingness to act.” 3 The Fifteenth Amendment essentially “permitted the federal government to take any necessary steps to ensure that blacks in the South were free to vote.” 4 Intimidating and terrorists’ techniques prevented the Fifteenth Amendment from effectiveness. 5 For example, “In 1871, a small group of blacks in Mississippi were placed on trial for allegedly causing civil unrest in their demands to be allowed to vote. As the trial began, other blacks congregated outside the court, which spurred Klansmen to action. They arrived on the scene and shot and killed several blacks. They then grabbed the blacks who had been on trial, dragged them away, and hanged them.” 6 Equally important, Congress declined funding for the Department of Justice, which was responsible for prosecuting private actors who were guilty. As a result, Southern states easily applied disfranchising practices by passing their own laws. 7 Even more striking, reports estimated that “75 percent of Mississippi’s delegates were Klansmen, Georgia, 85 percent; Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas, 80 percent; delegation from Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia were all at least half Klan.” 8 Immediately after Emancipation, civil rights issues surfaced as the Reconstruction period gave black Americans legal clout to challenge the status quo of being 47

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Chapter 5

treated unfairly. 9 In author Judy Hasday’s The Civil Rights Act of 1964, she quotes Ronald Davis’ The History of Jim Crow, who contended: In general the Jim Crow era in American history dates from the late 1890s, when southern states began systematically to codify in law and state constitutional provisions the subordinate position of African Americans in society. Most of these legal steps were aimed at separating the races in public space and preventing adult black males from exercising the right to vote. In every state of the former Confederacy, the system of legalized segregation and disfranchisement was fully in place by 1910. This system of white supremacy cut across class boundaries and re-enforced a cult of “whiteness” that predated the Civil War. 10

Similar in nature, some common legal and illegal voting practiced in the twentieth century included: Withholding information about registration, voting procedures or party activities from black voters; giving inadequate or erroneous information to black voters, or failing to provide assistance to illiterate voters; omitting the names of registered voters from the lists; maintaining racially segregated voting lists or facilities; conducting re-registration or purging the rolls; allowing improper challenges of black voters; disqualifying black voters on technical grounds; requiring separate registration for different types of elections; failing to provide the same opportunities for absentee ballot to blacks as to whites; moving polling places or establishing them in inconvenient or intimidating locations; setting elections at inconvenient times; failing to provide adequate voting facilities in areas of greatly increased black registration; and causing or taking advantage of election day irregularities. 11

Disfranchising practices had many consequences. First, Southern legislators were not “responsive to the needs and desires of non-white Americans for civil rights protection.” Second, the legislators had more of an interest in “opposing civil rights laws since they were elected on white supremacy platforms.” Essentially, “The non-white voter would become a symbol of the breakdown of white supremacy.” 12 Additionally, disfranchising practices were made easier by the withdrawal of federal intervention. For example, “The army was no longer used in elections after 1878; attempts at new force bills failed in Congress in 1888 and 1890; appropriations for federal marshalls and superintendents of election were cut off in 1894.” 13 Through “extra-legal stratagems and ingenious state legislation” black Americans’ vote was both “minimized and controlled.” 14 President John F. Kennedy petitioned Congress to pass a bill that would assist black Americans in the voting challenges they faced. According to Susan Gold this was a piece of legislation that “provided for referees to settle

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voting disputes; expedited lawsuits on voting issues; and, in federal elections, eliminated tests designed to keep black Americans from voting.” 15 Martin Luther King Jr. expressed in a letter to the president his inner most feelings about what the voting rights legislation would entail. Moreover, King suggested that black Americans register to vote at U.S. post offices: Such new legislation must provide machinery which is virtually automatic to eliminate the interposition of varying standards and crippling discretion on the part of hostile state officials. Only elementary biographical data should be required. It must put an end the use of literacy tests in those areas where Negroes have been disadvantaged by generations of inferior, segregated education. It must apply to all elections-federal, state or even for sheriff, school board, etc. Enforcement of such legislation must be reposed in federal registrars appointed by and responsible to the president. They must be empowered to act swiftly and locally to insure the nondiscriminatory use of simplified federal machinery. Such legislation at the very minimum should be directed at the most oppressive regions as typified by Selma and other hardcore areas in the South. 16

Discrimination in politics sent a dark message to black American voters. A message that suffrage activists, who fought against overt racial discrimination in the electoral process, worried about and who had to deal with the many forms of voting discrimination such as: Insufficient availability of registrars at registration sites; limited registration times outside the standard workday schedule; relocating registrars in or near places historically hostile to blacks; re-registration requirements that effectively and disproportionately purged minorities from voter registration rolls; insufficient polling places, hours, and personnel; last-minute relocation of polling places to inconvenient or distant areas; last-minute closures of polling places and inadequate publication of voting rules and procedures; white racial bloc voting that submerged black votes; accepting and certifying absentee ballots from white nonresidents of a jurisdiction; changes from single-member to multimember districts; prohibition of “bullet” voting options in multimember district elections; annexation of white subdivisions into majority black districts; majority-vote run-off elections in areas with no districting; racial gerrymanders that excluded black voters; open primaries decided by majority rather than plurality decision rules; and increased campaign filing fees for candidates. 17

Some firmly stood on the belief that to remedy voting discrimination against black Americans, Congress was expected to exercise it powers to enforce the Reconstruction Amendments: The Reconstruction Amendments were intended to be limitations of the power of the States and enlargements of the power of Congress. Congress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by appropriate legislation. Some legislation is

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Chapter 5 contemplated to make the amendments fully effective. Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is, adapted to carry out the objects the amendments have in view, whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibitions they contain, and to secure to all persons the enjoyment of perfect equality of civil rights if not prohibited, is brought within the domain of congressional power. 18

In fulfilling and administering equal rights, President Grant said in his quite succinct speech: I call the attention, therefore, of the newly-enfranchised race to the importance of their striving, in every honorable manner, to make themselves worthy of their new privilege. The adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution completes the greatest civil change, and constitutes the most important event that has occurred since the nation came into life. 19

Further, in his inaugural address, Frederick Douglass highlighted some of President Grant’s main points about suffrage and the Fifteenth Amendment: The question of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are excluded from its privileges in any State. It seems to me very desirable that this question should be settled now, and I entertain the hope and express the desire that it may be by the ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment to the Constitution. 20 Though, as he said, it is unusual to notify the two Houses by message, of the promulgation of the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution, yet he sent one in regard to the ratification of the fifteenth amendment, in which he said: “Institutions like ours, in which all power is derived directly from the people, must depend mainly upon their intelligence, patriotism, and industry. I call the attention, therefore, of the newly-enfranchised race to the importance of their striving in ever honorable manner to make themselves worthy of their new privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by our laws I would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people.” The “Father of his country,” in his farewell address, used this language: “Promote, then, as a matter of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of the Government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” In his first annual message to Congress the same views are forcibly presented, and are again urged in his eighth message. 21

In the twentieth century a part of developing white society was maintaining supremacy from the previous era. This included figuring out formers slaves’ place in the New South. It was a convoluted matter to deal with: The South is in no condition at present to justly deal with the question of suffrage. While it can easily enough take away unlimited suffrage from the

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colored voter, and even possibly in some quarters attempt to deprive the entire race of political rights, it cannot do the same by that portion of its own white population which is still in the bonds of illiteracy, including those who cannot and those who do not read. This portion of the southern people represents an ancestry that, for the past two hundred and fifty years, has distinguished itself in the almost perpetual state of war through which the South and the SouthWest has come to its present estate. This man from whom it is proposed to take his vote will tell you that his great-grandfather fought at King’s Mountain; another member of the family followed Jackson to New Orleans; half a dozen of his relatives were killed, or helped to kill, the noble savage. Others tramped with Scott to Mexico; he left a leg at Gettysburg and his boys ran away from home to fight under the old flag in Cuba and in the Philippines, one of them, now an invalid, supported by him. He has voted all his life as instructed by the eloquence and relying upon the advice of the illustrious group of Southern statesmen during the past fifty years. You cannot make him understand why he should be deprived of his vote, at this time; neither can you reasonably expect that the present voting constituency of the South, composed so largely of the old non-slave-holding class, can be persuaded to anything of this sort. 22

The case, Jackson Giles v. Montgomery County, Alabama, challenged 1901 Alabama state constitution concerning suffrage: Our contention is, that while the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments do not confer the right of suffrage upon the negro, they contain a solemn guarantee of this nation that no State shall give any preference in this particular to the white citizens over the blacks, or deny the negroes the right to vote, or hinder them in the exercise of the same, because of their race and color and previous condition of servitude, and that it is clearly within the equity jurisdiction of the courts of the United States to enforce this solemn guarantee. 23

Prior to this case though, Robert Smalls was a black delegate in South Carolina during the constitutional convention of 1895. He was against restricted the franchise: We served our masters faithfully and willing and as we were made to do 244 years. In the last war you left them home. You went to the war, fought and came back home, shattered to pieces worn-out, one legged and found your wife and family being properly cared for by the Negroes you left behind. Why should you now seek to disfranchise a race that has been so true to you? 24 The Negroes are paying taxes in the South on $263,000,000 worth of property. In South Carolina according to the census the Negroes pay tax on $12,500,000 worth of property. That was in 1890. You voted down without discussion merely to lay on the table, a proposition for a simple property and educational qualification. What do you want? You tried the infamous eightbox and registration laws until they were worn to such a thinness that they could stand neither the test of the law nor of public opinion. In behalf of the 600,000 Negroes in the State and the 132,000 Negro voters all that I demand is that a fair and honest election law be passed. We care not what the qualifica-

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Chapter 5 tions imposed are: all that we ask is that they be fair and honest and honorable, and with these provisos we will stand or fall by it. You have 102,000 white men over 21 years of age; 13,000 of these cannot read nor write. You dare not disfranchise them . . . 25

John Lynch, a congressman, encouraged blacks to not support the Democratic Party, who favored opposing black suffrage: Speaking with reference to Negro suffrage, he used the following language: “It is a thorn in the flesh and will irritate and rankle until it is removed from the body politic. This is not only the opinion of Senator Morgan, it is the position of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on the other hand, in its last national platform, emphatically declared that it was the plain purpose of the 15th Amendment to the Federal Constitution to prevent distinction on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise, and that the devices of state governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactments to defeat this purpose are revolutionary and should be condemned. On this important question the issue is thus clearly joined between the two great parties.” 26

Joseph Le Conte, a biologist, argued for restricting the franchise solely based on education and property requirements: Some feeble attempts have been made in this direction in certain parts of the South, and always with the best effects. In many States a law making payment of a small poll-tax of one or two dollars a condition of voting disfranchises a large majority of the ignorant blacks. It disfranchises some whites, too, but this is no objection. Other and less justifiable but legal means have been used to diminish the incapable vote, such as the eight-ballot-box law in South Carolina. Mississippi alone has gone still farther in this direction, and that because the necessity was greater there than in most States. In the recent constitution of that State there is a qualification for voting, including the ability to read, or else to understand and interpret the constitution and laws (a much harder condition than mere ability to read, but too indefinite), and also the payment of all taxes, including a poll-tax of two dollars, for the two preceding years. May we not hope that these qualifications will be increased in amount and extended throughout the South, and that they will become an entering wedge to accomplish the same result throughout the whole country? 27

Finally, on March 7, 1965, protesters marched toward Montgomery, Alabama. As the protesters walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they faced Alabama state troopers. Law enforcement was ordered to attack the protesters and was beaten, tear-gassed and trampled. This became known as “Bloody Sunday.” 28 Later that year black Americans witnessed “federal power in the most violent of the southern states, Mississippi, and passage of the Civil Rights Act. This new law permitted the government to combat voting discriminatory practices, the first successful legislation since Con-

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gress repealed the Enforcement Acts, 1870-71.” 29 The right to vote without discrimination is indeed secured by the Constitution; therefore, Congress, by absent affirmative legislation, did not protect this right from interference by individuals. 30 In a number of ways, its course of action defeated the purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment’s moral authority.

NOTES 1. Allen Trelease, White Terror, 8. 2. Ibid., 21. 3. Ibid. 4. Martin Gitlin, The Ku Klux Klan: A Guide to an American Subculture (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009), 7. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Michael Newton, The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 89. 9. “Careers in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,” President and Fellows of Harvard College (2007): 5. 10. Judy Hasday, The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An End to Racial Segregation (New York: Chelsea House Pub, 2007), 12. 11. Bernard Grofman and Chandler Davidson, eds., Controversies in Minority Voting, 22. 12. Robert Weaver and Hortense Gabel, “Some Legislative Consequences of Negro Disfranchisement,” Journal of Negro Education 26, no. 3 (1957): 255. 13. George Tindall, “The Campaign for the Disfranchisement of Negroes in South Carolina,” Journal of Southern History 15, no. 2 (1949): 215. 14. Dewey Grantham., “Georgia Politics and the Disfranchisement of the Negro,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1948): 1. 15. Susan Dudley Gold, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (New York: Benchmark Books, 2010), 34. 16. Ibid., 57. 17. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Judiciary, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, 97th Cong., 60. 18. James Thomas Tucker, The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots: Language Minorities and Political Access under the Voting Rights Act (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 16. 19. Ulysses S. Grant, “All Men Free and Equal” (speech to Congress, New Haven, Connecticut, 1870). 20. Frederick Douglass, “To the Colored People of the United States,” July 17, 1872. 21. Ibid. 22. A. D. Mayo, “The Duty of the White American Towards His Colored Fellow-Citizen” (address before the National sociological society, Washington, D. C., 1900. 23. Giles v. Harris, 493U.S. (1903). 24. Robert Smalls, “Speeches at the Constitutional Convention: With the Right of Suffrage Passed by the Constitutional Convention,” 1896. 25. Ibid. 26. John R. Lynch, “Colored Americans: John R. Lynch’s Appeal to Them, 1900. 27. Joseph Le Conte, “The Race Problem in the South,” 1892. 28. Alexandra Gekas, “‘A Gun on One Hip, a Nightstick on the Other’; the Sheriff Behind ‘Bloody Sunday’ is Dead. John Lewis Recalls His Old Foe, and a Day That Changed America Forever,” Newsweek, June 18, 2007.

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29. Amy Louise Wood, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, vol. 19 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 43. 30. “Right of Negroes to Vote in State Primaries,” Harvard Law Review 43, no. 3 (1930): 468.

Appendix A Profiles of the 41ST–89TH Congress 1

41ST CONGRESS (1869–1871) 243 Representatives 9 Delegates 67 Democrats 171 Republicans Congressional Summary: Black Americans in Congress for the first time—Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph Rainey of South Carolina. Two Ku Klux Klan acts enacted to suppress mob rule by white supremacists. Congress also established the Department of Justice. 42ND CONGRESS (1871–1873) 243 Representatives 10 Delegates 104 Democrats 136 Republicans Congressional Summary: President Ulysses S. Grant requested additional power to combat terrorism against black Americans at the polls. Congress responded with the Third Ku Klux Klan Act.

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43RD CONGRESS (1873–1875) 292 Representatives 10 Delegates 88 Democrats 199 Republicans 44TH CONGRESS (1875–1877) 293 Representatives 9 Delegates 182 Democrats 103 Republicans 45TH CONGRESS (1877–1879) 293 Representatives 8 Delegates 155 Democrats 136 Republicans Congressional Summary: President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed an Army appropriations bill, which would have ended the use of federal troops to protect polling stations in the South. 46TH CONGRESS (1879–1881) 293 Representatives 8 Delegates 141 Democrats 132 Republicans Congressional Summary: Democrats retained control of the House and the Senate. This Congress diminished Reconstruction legislation protecting black Americans’ voting rights. 47TH CONGRESS (1881–1883) 293 Representatives 8 Delegates 128 Democrats

Appendix A

57

151 Republicans 48TH CONGRESS (1883–1885) 325 Representatives 8 Delegates 196 Democrats 117 Republicans Congressional Summary: Congress continued to move away from civil rights legislation to instead focus on the industrial economy. 49TH CONGRESS (1885–1887) 325 Representatives 8 Delegates 182 Democrats 141 Republicans 50TH CONGRESS (1887–1889) 325 Representatives 8 Delegates 167 Democrats 152 Republicans 51ST CONGRESS (1889–1891) 332 Representatives 9 Delegates 152 Democrats 179 Republicans 52ND CONGRESS (1891–1893) 332 Representatives 4 Delegates 238 Democrats 86 Republicans

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53RD CONGRESS (1893–1895) 356 Representatives 4 Delegates 218 Democrats 124 Republicans Congressional Summary: Southern Democrats repealed the Reconstruction-era Force Acts that required federal supervision of Southern elections. 54TH CONGRESS (1895–1897) 357 Representatives 4 Delegates 93 Democrats 254 Republicans 55TH CONGRESS (1897–1899) 357 Representatives 3 Delegates 124 Democrats 206 Republicans 56TH CONGRESS (1899–1901) 357 Representatives 4 Delegates 161 Democrats 187 Republicans 57TH CONGRESS (1901–1903) 357 Representatives 4 Delegates 151 Democrats 200 Republicans 58TH CONGRESS (1903–1905) 386 Representatives

Appendix A

4 Delegates 176 Democrats 207 Republicans 59TH CONGRESS (1905–1907) 386 Representatives 5 Delegates 135 Democrats 251 Republicans 60TH CONGRESS (1907–1909) 391 Representatives 5 Delegates 167 Democrats 223 Republicans 61ST CONGRESS (1909–1911) 391 Representatives 4 Delegates 172 Democrats 219 Republicans 62ND CONGRESS (1911–1913) 394 Representatives 4 Delegates 230 Democrats 162 Republicans 63RD CONGRESS (1913–1915) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 291 Democrats 134 Republicans

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64TH CONGRESS (1915–1917) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 230 Democrats 196 Republicans 65TH CONGRESS (1917–1919) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 214 Democrats 215 Republicans 66TH CONGRESS (1919–1921) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 192 Democrats 240 Republicans 67TH CONGRESS (1921–1923) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 131 Democrats 302 Republicans 68TH CONGRESS (1923–1925) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 207 Democrats 225 Republicans 69TH CONGRESS (1925–1927) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 183 Democrats 247 Republicans

Appendix A

70TH CONGRESS (1927–1929) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 194 Democrats 238 Republicans 71ST CONGRESS (1929–1931) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 164 Democrats 270 Republicans 72ND CONGRESS (1931–1933) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 216 Democrats 218 Republicans 73RD CONGRESS (1933–1935) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 313 Democrats 117 Republicans 74TH CONGRESS (1935–1937) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 322 Democrats 103 Republicans 75TH CONGRESS (1937–1939) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 334 Democrats 88 Republicans

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76TH CONGRESS (1939–1941) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 262 Democrats 169 Republicans 77TH CONGRESS (1941–1943) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 267 Democrats 162 Republicans 78TH CONGRESS (1943–1945) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 222 Democrats 209 Republicans 79TH CONGRESS (1945–1947) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 242 Democrats 191 Republicans 80TH CONGRESS (1947–1949) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 188 Democrats 246 Republicans 81ST CONGRESS (1949–1951) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 263 Democrats 171 Republicans

Appendix A

82ND CONGRESS (1951–1953) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 235 Democrats 199 Republicans 83RD CONGRESS (1953-1955) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 1 Resident Commissioner 213 Democrats 221 Republicans 84TH CONGRESS (1955-1957) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 1 Resident Commissioner 232 Democrats 203 Republicans 85TH CONGRESS (1957-1959) 435 Representatives 2 Delegates 1 Resident Commissioner 232 Democrats 203 Republicans 86TH CONGRESS (1959-1961) 437 Representatives 1 Resident Commissioner 283 Democrats 151 Republicans 87TH CONGRESS (1961-1963) 437 Representatives

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1 Resident Commissioner 263 Democrats 174 Republicans 88TH CONGRESS (1963-1965) 435 Representatives 1 Resident Commissioner 259 Democrats 176 Republicans 89TH CONGRESS (1965-1967) 435 Representatives 1 Resident Commissioner 295 Democrats 140 Republicans Congressional Summary: This Congress passed legislation that protected voting rights. NOTE 1. Source: History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, “41st-89th Congress,” http://history.house.gov/Congressional-Overview/Profiles/51st/ (December 15, 2014).

Appendix B Southern Democratic Senators 41ST–89TH Congress

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774–present, http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/ Biographical_Directory.htm 41ST CONGRESS (1869–1871) 1869 JOHNSTON, John VA McCREERY, Thomas KY MILLER, Homer Virgil GA 1870 JOHNSTON, John VA McCREERY, Thomas KY MILLER, Homer Virgil GA 1871 COOPER, Henry TN GOLDTHWAITE, George AL JOHNSTON, John Warfield VA MACHEN, Willis Benson KY NORWOOD, Thomas GA 65

Appendix B

66

RANSOM, Matt Whitaker NC STEVENSON, John KY 42ND CONGRESS (1871–1873) 1872 COOPER, Henry TN GOLDTHWAITE, George AL JOHNSTON, John VA MACHEN, Willis KY NORWOOD, Thomas GA RANSOM, Matt NC STEVENSON, John KY 1873 COOPER, Henry TN GOLDTHWAITE, George AL GORDON, John GA JOHNSTON, John VA McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC NORWOOD, Thomas GA RANSOM, Matt NC STEVENSON, John KY 43RD CONGRESS (1873–1875) 1874 COOPER, Henry TN GOLDTHWAITE, George AL GORDON, John GA JOHNSTON, John VA McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC NORWOOD, Thomas GA RANSOM, Matt NC STEVENSON, John KY

Appendix B

1875 BAILEY, James TN COOPER, Henry TN EUSTIS, James LA GOLDTHWAITE, George AL GORDON, John GA JOHNSON, Andrew TN JOHNSTON, John VA JONES, Charles FL KEY, David TN MAXEY, Samuel TX McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC NORWOOD, Thomas GA RANSOM, Matt NC STEVENSON, John KY WITHERS, Robert VA 44TH CONGRESS (1875–1877) BAILEY, James TN COOPER, Henry TN EUSTIS, James LA GOLDTHWAITE, George AL GORDON, John GA JOHNSON, Andrew TN JOHNSTON, John VA JONES, Charles FL KEY, David TN MAXEY, Samuel TX McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC NORWOOD, Thomas GA RANSOM, Matt NC STEVENSON, John KY WITHERS, Robert VA 1877 BAILEY, James TN BECK, James KY BUTLER, Matthew SC

67

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68

COKE, Richard TX EUSTIS, James LA GARLAND, Augustus AR GORDON, John GA HARRIS, Isham TN HILL, Benjamin GA JOHNSTON, John VA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC MORGAN, John AL RANSOM, Matt NC WITHERS, Robert VA 45TH CONGRESS (1877–1879) BAILEY, James TN BECK, James KY BUTLER, Matthew SC COKE, Richard TX EUSTIS, James LA GARLAND, Augustus AR GORDON, John GA HARRIS, Isham TN HILL, Benjamin GA JOHNSTON, John VA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX McCREERY, Thomas KY MERRIMON, Augustus NC MORGAN, John AL RANSOM, Matt NC WITHERS, Robert VA 1879 BAILEY, James TN BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC

Appendix B

CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX GARLAND, Augustus AR GORDON, John GA HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN HILL, Benjamin GA HOUSTON, George AL JOHNSTON, John VA JONAS, Benjamin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PRYOR, Luke AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John KY WITHERS, Robert VA 46TH CONGRESS (1879–1881) 1880 BAILEY, James TN BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX GARLAND, Augustus AR GORDON, John GA HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN HEREFORD, Frank WV HILL, Benjamin GA HOUSTON, George AL JOHNSTON, John VA JONAS, Benjamin Franklin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS

69

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70

MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PRYOR, AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John KY WITHERS, Robert VA 1881 BARROW, Middleton GA BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN HILL, Benjamin GA JACKSON, Howell TN JOHNSTON, John VA JONAS, Benjamin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John 47TH CONGRESS (1881–1883) 1882 BARROW, Middleton GA BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA

Appendix B

BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN HILL, Benjamin GA JACKSON, Howell TN JOHNSTON, John VA JONAS, Benjamin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John KY 1883 BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX COLQUITT, Alfred GA GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN JACKSON, Howell T JONAS, Benjamin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC

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72

WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John KY 48TH CONGRESS (1883–1885) 1884 BECK, James KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX COLQUITT, Alfred GA GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham T JACKSON, Howell TN JONAS, Benjamin LA JONES, Charles FL LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALKER, James AR WILLIAMS, John KY 1885 BECK, James KY BERRY, James AR BLACKBURN, Joseph KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COLQUITT, Alfred GA EUSTIS, James LA GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA

Appendix B

HAMPTON, SC HARRIS, Isham TN JACKSON, Howell TN JONES, Charles FL JONES, James AR LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALTHALL, Edward MS WHITTHORNE, Washington TN 49TH CONGRESS (1885–1887) 1886 BECK, James KY BERRY, James AR BLACKBURN, Joseph KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX COLQUITT, Alfred GA EUSTIS, James LA GARLAND, Augustus AR GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN JACKSON, Howell TN JONES, Charles FL JONES, James AR LAMAR, Lucius MS MAXEY, Samuel TX MORGAN, John AL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC VANCE, Zebulon NC WALTHALL, Edward MS WHITTHORNE, Washington TN

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74

1887 BATE, William TN BECK, James KY BERRY, James AR BLACKBURN, Joseph KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX COLQUITT, Alfred GA DANIEL, John VA EUSTIS, James LA GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA HAMPTON, SC HARRIS, Isham TN JONES, James AR MORGAN, John AL PASCO, Samuel FL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC REAGAN, John TX VANCE, Zebulon NC WALTHALL, Edward MS 50TH CONGRESS (1887–1889) 1888 BATE, William TN BECK, James KY BERRY, James AR BLACKBURN, Joseph KY BROWN, Joseph GA BUTLER, Matthew SC CALL, Wilkinson FL COKE, Richard TX COLQUITT, Alfred GA DANIEL, John VA EUSTIS, James LA GEORGE, James MS GIBSON, Randall LA

Appendix B

HAMPTON, Wade SC HARRIS, Isham TN JONES, James AR MORGAN, John AL PASCO, Samuel FL PUGH, James AL RANSOM, Matt NC REAGAN, John T VANCE, Zebulon NC5 WALTHALL, Edward MS 51ST CONGRESS (1889–1891) Barbour, John Strode, Jr. VA Bate, William Brimage TN Beck, James Burnie KY Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Brown, Joseph GA Butler, Matthew SC Call, Wilkinson FL Carlisle, John KY Coke, Richard TX Colquitt, Alfred GA Daniel, John VA Eustis, James LA George, James MS Gibson, Randall LA Hampton, Wade SC Harris, Isham TN Jones, James AR Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pugh, James AL Ransom, Matt NC Reagan, John TX Vance, Zebulon NC Walthall, Edward MS 52ND CONGRESS (1891–1893) Barbour, John VA

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76

Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Buttler, Matthew SC Caffery, Donelson LA Call, Wilkinson FL Carlisle, John KY Chilton, Horace TX Coke, Richard TX Colquitt, Alfred GA Daniel, John VA George, James MS Gibson, Randall LA Gordon, John GA Gray, George DE Harris, Isham TN Hunton, Eppa VA Irby, John SC Jones, James AR Lindsay, William KY Mills, Roger TX Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pugh, James AL Ransom, Matt NC Reagan, John TX Vance, Zebulon NC Walthall, Edward MS White, Edward LA 53RD CONGRESS (1893–1895) Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Blanchard, Newton LA Butler, Matthew SC Caffery, Donelson LA Call, Wilkinson FL Coke, Richard TX Colquitt, Alfred GA Daniel, John VA

Appendix B

George, James MS Gordon, John GA Harris, Isham TN Hunton, Eppa VA Irby, John SC Jarvis, Thomas NC Jones, James AR Lindsay, William KY Martin, John KS McLaurin, Anselm MS Mills, Roger TX Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pugh, James AL Ransom, Matt NC Vance, Zebulon NC Walsh, Patrick GA Walthall, Edward MS White, Edward LA 54TH CONGRESS (1895–1897) Bacon, Augustus GA Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Blanchard, Newton LA Caffery, Donelson LA Call, Wilkinson FL Chilton, Horace TX Daniel, John VA George, James MS Gordon, John GA Harris, Isham TN Irby, John SC Jones, James AR Lindsay, William KY Martin, Thomas VA Mills, Roger TX Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pugh, James AL

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78

Tillman, Benjamin SC Walthall, Edward MS 55TH CONGRESS (1897–1899) Bacon, Augustus GA Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Carrery, Donelson LA Chilton, Horace TX Clay, Alexander GA Daniel, John VA Earle, Joseph SC George, James MS Harris, Isham TN Jones, James AR Lindsay, William KY Mallory, Stephen FL Martin, Thomas VA McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, John SC Mills, Roger TX Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pettus, Edmund AL Sullivan, William MS Tillman, Benjamin SC Turley, Thomas TN Walthall, Edward MS 56TH CONGRESS (1899–1901) Bacon, Augustus GA Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Caffery, Donelson LA Chilton, Horace TX Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Jones, James AR

Appendix B

Lindsay, William KY Mallory, Stephen FL Martin, Thomas VA McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, John SC Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Pasco, Samuel FL Pettus, Edmund AL Sullivan, William MS Taliaferro, James FL Tillman, Benjamin SC Turley, Thomas TN 57TH CONGRESS (1901–1903) Bacon, Augustus GA Bailey, Joseph TX Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Carmack, Edward TN Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Foster, Murphy LA Jones, James AR Mallory, Stephen FL Martin, Thomas VA McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, Anselm MS McLaurin, John SC Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Pettus, Edmund AL Simmons, Furnifold NC Taliaferro, James FL Tillman, Benjamin SC 58TH CONGRESS (1903–1905) Bacon, Augustus GA

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Bailey, Joseph TX Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Carmack, Edward TN Clarke, James AR Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Foster, Murphy LA Latimer, Asbury SC Mallory, Stephen FL Martin, Thomas VA McCreary, James KY McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, Anselm MS Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Overman, Lee NC Pettus, Edmund AL Simmons, Furnifold NC Taliaferro, James FL Tillman, Benjamin SC 59TH CONGRESS (1905–1907) Bacon, Augustus GA Bailey, Joseph TX Bate, William TN Berry, James AR Blackburn, Joseph KY Carmack, Edward TN Clarke, James AR Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Foster, Murphy LA Frazier, James TN Latimer, Asbury SC Mallory, Stephen FL Martin, Thomas VA McCreary, James KY

Appendix B

McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, Anselm MS Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Overman, Lee NC Pettus, Edmund AL Simmons, Furnifold NC Taliaferro, James FL Tillman, Benjamin SC 60TH CONGRESS (1907–1909) Bacon, Augustus GA Bailey, Joseph TX Bankhead, John AL Bryan, William FL Clarke, James AR Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Davis, Jess AR Foster, Murphy LA Frazier, James TN Gary, Frank SC Johnston, Joseph AL Latimer, Asbury SC Martin, Thomas VA McCreary, James KY McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, Anselm MS Milton, William FL Money, Hernando MS Morgan, John AL Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Paynter, Thomas KY Pettus, Edmund AL Simmons, Furnifold NC Taliaferro, James FL Taylor, Robert TN Tillman, Benjamin SC

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82

61ST CONGRESS (1909–1911) Bacon, Augustus GA Bailey, Joseph TX Bankhead, John AL Clarke, James AR Clay, Alexander GA Culberson, Charles TX Daniel, John VA Davis, Jeff AR Fletcher, Duncan FL Foster, Murphy LA Frazier, James TN Gordon, James MS Gore, Thomas OK Johnston, Joseph AL Martin, Thomas VA McEnery, Samuel LA McLaurin, Anselm MS Money, Henrando MS Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Paynter, Thomas KY Percy, Le Roy MS Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Swanson, Claude VA Taliaferro, James FL Taylor, Robert TN Terrell, Joseph GA Thornton, John LA Tillman, Benjamin SC 62ND CONGRESS (1911–1913) Bacon, Augustus GA Bailey, Joseph TX Bankhead, John AL Bryan, Nathan FL Clarke, James AR Culberson, Charles TX Davis, Jeff AR

Appendix B

Fletcher, Duncan FL Foster, Murphy LA Frazier, James TN Gore, Thomas OK Heiskell, John AR Johnston, Joseph AL Johnston, Rienzi TX Kavanaugh, William AR Lea, Luke TN Martin, Thomas VA Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Paynter, Thomas KY Percy, Le Roy MS Sherppard, Morris TX Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Smith, Hoke GA Swanson, Claude VA Taylor, Robert TN Terrell, Joseph GA Thornton, John LA Tillman, Benjamin SC 63RD CONGRESS (1913–1915) Bacon, Augustus GA Bankhead, John AL Bryan, Nathan FL Camden, Johnson KY Clarke, James AR Culberson, Charles TX Fletcher, Duncan FL Gore, Thomas OK Hardwick, Thomas GA James, Ollie KY Johnston, Joseph AL Lea, Luke TN Martin, Thomas VA Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Ransdell, Joseph LA

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84

Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Smith, Hoke GA Swanson, Claude VA Thompson, William KS Thornton, John LA Tillman, Benjamin SC Vardaman, James MS West, William GA White, Francis AL Williams, John MS 64TH CONGRESS (1915–1917) Bankhead, John AL Beckham, John KY Broussard, Robert LA Bryan, Nathan FL Clarke, James AR Culberson, Charles TX Fletcher, Duncan FL Gore, Thomas OK Hardwick, Thomas GA James, Ollie KY Kirby, William AR Lea, Luke TN Martin, Thomas VA Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Smith, Hoke GA Swanson, Claude VA Thompson, William KS Tillman, Benjamin SC

Appendix B

Underwood, Oscar AL Vardaman, James MS Williams, John MS 65TH CONGRESS (1917–1919) Bankhead, John AL Beckham, John KY Benet, Christie SC Broussard, Robert LA Culberson, Charles TX Fletcher, Duncan FL Gay, Edward LA Gore, Thomas OK Guion, Walter LA Hardwick, Thomas GA James, Ollie KY Kirby, William AR Martin, George KY Martin, Thomas VA McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Pollock, William SC Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Smith, Hoke GA Swanson, Claude VA Tillman, Benjamin SC Trammell, Park FL Underwood, Oscar AL Vardaman, James MS Williams, John MS 66TH CONGRESS (1919–1921) Bankhead, John AL Beckham, John KY

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Comer, Braxton AL Culberson, Charles TX Dial, Nathaniel SC Fletcher, Duncan FL Gay, Edward LA Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL Kirby, William AR Martin, Thomas VA McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Smith, Hoke GA Stanley, Augustus KY Swanson, Claude VA Trammell, Park FL Underwood, Oscar AL Williams, John MS 67TH CONGRESS (1921–1923) Broussard, Edwin LA Caraway, Thaddeus AR Culberson, Charles TX Dial, Nathaniel SC Felton, Rebecca GA Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter, GA Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC

Appendix B

Owen, Robert OK Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Stanley, Augustus KY Swanson, Claude VA Trammell, Park FL Underwood, Oscar AL Watson, Thomas GA 68TH CONGRESS (1923–1925) Broussard, Edwin LA Caraway, Thaddeus AR Dial, Nathanial SC Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL Mayfield, Earle TX McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC Owen, Robert OK Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Shields, John TN Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Stanley, Augustus KY Stephens, Hubert MS Swanson, Claude VA Trammell, Park FL Underwood, Oscar AL

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69TH CONGRESS (1925–1927) Blease, Coleman SC Broussard, Edwin LA Caraway, Thaddeus AR Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL Mayfield, Earle TX McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Stephens, Hubert MS Swanson, Claude VA Trammell, Park FL Tyson, Lawrence TN Underwood, Oscar Al 70TH CONGRESS (1927–1929) Barkely, Alben KY Black, Hugo AL Blease, Coleman SC Broussard LA Caraway, Thaddeus AR Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL Mayfield, Earle TX McKellar, Kenneth TN Overman, Lee NC Ransdell, Joseph LA

Appendix B

Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Stephens, Hubert MS Swanson, Claude VA Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Trammell, Park FL Tyson, Lawrence TN 71ST CONGRESS (1929–1931) Barkley, Alben KY Black, Hugo AL Blease, Coleman SC Brock, William TN Broussard, Edwin LA Caraway, Thaddeus AR Connally, Thomas TX Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Heflin, James AL McKellar, Kenneth TN Morrison, Cameron NC Overman, Lee NC Ransdell, Joseph LA Robinson, Joseph AR Sheppard, Morris TX Simmons, Furnifold NC Smith, Ellison SC Stephens, Hubert MS Swanson, Claude VA Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Trammell, Park FL Tyson, Lawrence TN

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72ND CONGRESS (1931–1933) Bachman, Nathan TN Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Black, Hugo AL Broussard, Edwin LA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Caraway, Thaddeus AR Cohen, John GA Connally, Thomas TX Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Gore, Thomas OK Harris, William GA Harrison, Byron MS Hull, Cordell TN Logan, Marvel KY Long, Huey LA McKellar, Kenneth TN Morrison, Cameron NC Reynolds, Robert NC Robinson, Joseph AR Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris TX Smith, Ellison SC Stephens, Hubert MS Swanson, Claude VA Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Trammell, Park FL 73RD CONGRESS (1933–1935) Bachman, Nathan TN Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Black, Hugo AL

Appendix B

Byrd, Harry VA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Connally, Thomas TX Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Gore, Thomas OK Harrison, Byron MS Logan, Marvel KY Long, Huey LA McGill, George KS McKellar, Kenneth TN Overton, John LA Reynolds, Robert NC Robinson, Joseph AR Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris TX Smith, Ellison SC Stephens, Hubert MS Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Trammell, Park FL 74TH CONGRESS (1935–1937) Andrews, Charles FL Bachman, Nathan TN Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Black, Hugo AL Byrd, Harry VA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Connally, Thomas TX Fletcher, Duncan FL George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Gore, Thomas OK Harrison, Byron MS

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Appendix B

92

Hill, William FL Loftin, Scott FL Logan, Marvel KY Long, Huey LA Long, Rose LA McKellar, Kenneth TN Overton, John LA Pepper, Claude FL Reynolds, Robert NC Robinson, Joseph AR Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris TX Smith, Ellison SC Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Trammell, Park FL 75TH CONGRESS (1937–1939) Andrews, Charles FL Bachman, Nathan TN Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Berry,George TN Bilbo, Theodore MS Black, Hugo AL Byrd, Harry VA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Connally, Thomas TX Ellender, Allen LA George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Graves, Dixie AL Harrison, Byron MS Hill, Joseph AL Lee, Joshua OK Logan, Marvel KY McKellar, Kenneth TN Miller, John AR Overton, John LA

Appendix B

Pepper, Claude FL Reynolds, Robert NC Robinson, Joseph AR Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris TX Smith, Ellison SC Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK 76TH CONGRESS (1939–1941) Andrews, Charles FL Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Byrd, Harry VA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Chandler, Albert KY Connally, Thomas TX Ellender, Allen LA George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Harrison, Byron MS Hill, Joseph AL Lee, Joshua OK Logan, Marvel KY McKellar, Kenneth TN Miller, John AR Overton, John LA Pepper, Claude FL Reynolds, Robert NC Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris Smith, Ellison SC Stewart, Arthur TN Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK

93

Appendix B

94

77TH CONGRESS (1941–1943) Andrews, Charles FL Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Byrd, Harry VA Byrnes, James SC Caraway, Hattie AR Chandler, Albert KY Connally, Thomas TX Doxey, Wall MS Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Harrison, Byron MS Hill, Joseph AL Houston, Andrew TX Lee, Joshua OK Lumpkin, Alva SC Maybank, Burnet SC McKellar, Kenneth TN Miller, John AR O’Daniel, Wilbert TX Overton, John LA Peace, Roger SC Pepper, Claude FL Reynolds, Robert NC Russell, Richard GA Sheppard, Morris TX Smith, Ellison SC Spencer, George AR Stewart, Arthur TN Thomas, Elmer, OK Thomas, John OK 78TH CONGRESS (1943–1945) Andrews, Charles FL Bailey, Josiah NC

Appendix B

Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Byrd, Harry VA Caraway, Hattie AR Chandler, Albert KY Connally, Thomas TX Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA Hall, Wilton SC Hill, Joseph AL Maybank, Burnet SC McClellan, John AR McKellar, Kenneth TN O’Daniel, Wilbert TX Overton, John LA Pepper, Claude FL Reynolds, Robert NC Russell, Richard GA Smith, Ellison SC Stewart, Arthur TN Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK 79TH CONGRESS (1945–1947) Andrews, Charles FL Bailey, Josiah NC Bankhead, John AL Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Burch, Thomas VA Byrd, Harry VA Chandler, Albert KY Connally, Thomas TX Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA Fulbright, James AR George, Walter GA Glass, Carter VA

95

Appendix B

96

Hill, Joseph AL Hoey, Clyde NC Holland, Spessard FL Johnston, Olin SC Maybank, Burnet SC McClellan, John AR McKellar, Kenneth TN O’Daniel, Wilbert TX Overton, John LA Pepper, Claude FL Robertson, Absalom VA Russell, Richard GA Sparkman, John AL Stewart, Arthur TN Swift, George AL Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Umstead, William NC 80TH CONGRESS (1947–1949) Barkley, Alben KY Bilbo, Theodore MS Broughton, Joseph NC Byrd, Harry VA Connally, Thomas TX Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA Feazel, William LA Fulbright, James AR George, Walter GA Hoey, Clyde NC Holland, Spessard FL Johnston, Olin SC Long, Russell Maybank, Burnet SC McClellan, John AR McKellar, Kenneth TN O’Daniel, Wilbert TX Overton, John LA Pepper, Claude FL Robertson, Absalom VA

Appendix B

Russell, Richard GA Sparkman, John AL Stennis, John MS Stewart, Arthur TN Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Umstead, William NC 81ST CONGRESS (1949–1951) Barkley, Alben KY Broughton, Joseph NC Byrd, Harry VA Chapman, Virgil KY Clements, Earle KY Connally, Thomas TX Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA Fulbright, James AR George, Walter GA Graham, Frank NC Hill, Joseph AL Hoey, Clyde NC Holland, Spessard FL Johnson, Lyndon TX Johnston, Olin SC Kefauver, Carey TN Kerr, Robert OK Long, Russell LA Maybank, Burnet SC McClellan, John AR McKellar, Kenneth TN Pepper, Claude FL Robertson, Absalom VA Russell, Richard GA Smith, Willis NC Sparkman, John AL Stennis, John MS Thomas, Elmer OK Thomas, John OK Withers, Garrett KY

97

Appendix B

98

82ND CONGRESS (1951–1953) Byrd, Harry VA Chapman, Virgil KY Clements, Earle KY Connally, Thomas TX Eastland, James MS Ellender, Allen LA Fulbright, James AR George, Walter GA Hill, Joseph AL Hoey, Clyde NC Holland, Spessard FL Johnson, Lyndon TX Johnston, Olin SC Kefauver, Carey TN Kerr, Robert OK Long, Russell LA Maybank, Burnet SC McClellan, John AR McKellar, Kenneth TN Monroney, Almer OK Robertson, Absalom VA Russell, Richard GA Smathers, George Smith, Willis NC Sparkman, John AL Stennis, John MS Underwood, Thomas KY 83RD CONGRESS (1953–1955) 1953 BYRD, Harry VA CLEMENTS, Earle KY DANIEL, Charles SC DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GEORGE, Walter GA

Appendix B

GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOEY, Clyde NC HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LENNON, Alton NC LONG, Russell LA MAYBANK, Burnet SC McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SCOTT, William NC SMATHERS, George FL SMITH, Willis NC SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS THURMOND, James SC 1954 BYRD, Harry VA CLEMENTS, Earle KY DANIEL, Charles SC DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GEORGE, Walter GA GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOEY, Clyde NC HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LENNON, Alton NC MAYBANK, Burnet SC McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA

99

Appendix B

100

SCOTT, William NC SMATHERS, George FL SMITH, Willis NC SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS THURMOND, James SC 1955 BARKLEY, Alben KY BYRD, Harry VA CLEMENTS, Earle KY DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James MS ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GEORGE, Walter GA GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HUMPHREYS, Robert KY JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SCOTT, William NC SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL THURMOND, James SC WOFFORD, Thomas SC 84TH CONGRESS (1955–1957) 1956 BARKLEY, Alben KY BYRD, Harry VA CLEMENTS, Earle KY DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James MS

Appendix B

ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GEORGE, Walter GA GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HUMPHREYS, Robert KY JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SCOTT, William NC SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS THURMOND, James SC WOFFORD, Thomas SC 1957 BLAKLEY, William TX BYRD, Harry VA DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SCOTT, William NC

101

Appendix B

102

SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 85TH CONGRESS (1957–1959) 1958 BLAKLEY, William TX BYRD, Harry Flood VA DANIEL, Marion TX EASTLAND, James Oliver MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel James NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SCOTT, William NC SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 1959 BARTLETT, Edward AK BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA

Appendix B

ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN GRUENING, Ernest AK HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 86TH CONGRESS (1959–1961) 1960 BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSON, Lyndon TX JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS

103

Appendix B

104

TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 1961 BLAKLEY, William TX BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 87TH CONGRESS (1961–1963) 1962 BLAKLEY, William TX BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HUMPHREY, Hubert MN JOHNSTON, Olin SC

Appendix B

JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA THURMOND, James SC YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 1963 BASS, Ross TN BYRD, Harry VA ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph DemocratAL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA WALTERS, Herbert TN YARBOROUGH, Ralph 88TH CONGRESS (1963–1965) 1964 BASS, Ross TN BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS

105

Appendix B

106

ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC KEFAUVER, Carey TN LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA 1965 BASS, Ross TN BYRD, Harry VA BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HOLLINGS, Ernest SC JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Donald SC RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL SPONG, William VA STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA

Appendix B

YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 89TH CONGRESS (1965–1967) 1966 BASS, Ross TN BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HOLLINGS, Ernest SC JOHNSTON, Olin SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC LONG, Russell LA McCLELLAN, John AR ROBERTSON, Absalom VA RUSSELL, Donald SC RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL SPARKMAN, John AL SPONG, William VA STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX 1967 BYRD, Harry VA EASTLAND, James MS ELLENDER, Allen LA ERVIN, Samuel NC FULBRIGHT, James AR GORE, Albert TN HILL, Joseph AL HOLLAND, Spessard FL HOLLINGS, Ernest SC JORDAN, Benjamin NC LONG, Russell LA

107

Appendix B

108

McCLELLAN, John AR RUSSELL, Richard GA SMATHERS, George FL90 SPARKMAN, John AL SPONG, William VA STENNIS, John MS TALMADGE, Herman GA YARBOROUGH, Ralph TX

Selected Bibliography

PRIMARY SOURCES Library of Congress Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection African American Pamphlet Collection Rare Book and Special Collections Division SECONDARY SOURCES Arlington, Karen McGill, and William L. Taylor. Voting Rights in America: Continuing the Quest for Full Participation. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. Ashcroft, Shad, ed. The Successes and Failures of Reconstruction: A Study with Documents. 2013. Avins, Alfred.”The Fifteenth Amendment and Literacy Tests: The Original Intent.” Stanford Law Review 18, no. 5 (1966): 808-822. Ayers, Edward L. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction. 15th ed.: Oxford University Press, 2007. Bartley, Numan V. and Hugh Davis Graham, “Whatever Happened to the Solid South?” New South 27, no. 4 (1972): 28-34. Bass, Jack and Walter DeVries. Transformation of Southern Politics: Social Change and Political Consequence Since 1945. Meridian, 1977. Black, Earl, and Merle Black. Politics and Society in the South. Harvard University Press, 1989. Branam, Chris M. “Another Look at Disfranchisement in Arkansas, 1888-1894.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2010): 245-263. Broder, David S. The Party’s Over: the Failure of Politics in America. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1972. Cash, W.J. The Mind of the South. Vintage ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. “Careers in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.” The President and Fellows of Harvard College (2007): 1-57. “Chandler Sees Trick.” Daily Press (Newport News, VA), May 15, 1908. Clubok, Alfred, John M. De Grove, and Charles D. Farris. “The Manipulated Negro Vote: Preconditions and Consequences.” Journal of Politics 26, no. 1 (1964): 112-29.

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“Democrat Advocates Disfranchisement.” Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, KY), Oct. 9, 1908. “Democratic Hypocrisy.” The Muskogee Cimeter (Indian Territory, OK), Oct. 30, 1908. Dunbar, Leslie W. “The Changing Mind of the South: The Exposed Nerve.” Journal of Politics 26, no. 1 (1964): 3-21. Foster, Lorn S. The Voting Rights Act: Consequences and Implications. New York: Praeger Publishers Inc., 1985. Franklin, John Hope. “Legal Disfranchisement of the Negro.” Journal of Negro Education 26, no. 3 (1957): 241-268. Frederickson, Kari. The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Gerichs, William Christian. “The Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in Indiana.” Indiana Magazine of History 9, no. 3 (1913): 131-166. Gitlin, Martin. The Ku Klux Klan: A Guide to an American Subculture. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2009. Gold, Susan Dudley. The Civil Rights Act of 1964. New York: Benchmark Books, 2010. “Grandfather Clause.” Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), June 26, 1915. Grantham, Dewey W. “Georgia Politics and the Disfranchisement of the Negro.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1948), 1-21. ———. The Democratic South: The Economic and Social Revolution in the South Interpreted in the Light of History. W. W. Norton & Company, 1965. ———. The Life and Death of the Solid South: A Political History. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1988. Grofman, Bernard N., and Chandler Davidson, eds. Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992. Grofman, Bernard, Lisa Handley, and Richard G. Niemi. Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hasday, Judy L. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: An End to Racial Segregation. New York: Chelsea House Pub (L), 2007. Hirshson, Stanley P. Farewell to the Bloody Shirt Northern Republicans and the Southern Negro 1877-1893. Quadrangle, 1962. Holley, Donald. “A Look Behind the Masks: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Monticello, Arkansas.” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 60, no. 2 (2001): 131-151. “How They Love the Negro.” Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), Aug. 1, 1908. Irish, Marian D. “Political Thought and Political Behavior in the South.” Western Political Quarterly 13 (1960): 406-20. Keech, William R. The Impact of Negro Voting: The Role of the Vote in the Quest for Equality. 1st ed. Rand McNally and Company, 1968. Key, V.O. Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. Vintage Books, 1949. Kousser, J. Morgan. Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999. ———. “Post-Reconstruction Suffrage Restrictions in Tennessee: A New Look at the V. O. Key Thesis.” Political Science Quarterly 88, no. 4 (1973): 655-683. Laney, Garrine P. The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Historical Background and Current Issues. New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2013. Lawson, Steven F. Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999. Lodge, Henry C. and T.V. Powderly. “The Federal Election Bill.” The North American Review 151, no. 406 (1890): 257-273. Lowenstein, Daniel. “Race and Representation in the Supreme Court.” In Voting Rights and Redistricting in the United States, edited by Mark E. Rush, 49-78. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Martin, Gordon A. Jr. Count Them One by One: Black Mississippians Fighting for the Right to Vote. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010. May, Gary. Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy. Basic Books, 2013.

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McDonald, Laughlin. A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. McKay, Robert B. “Racial Discrimination in the Electoral Process.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 407, no.1 (1973): 102-118. Monnet, Julien C. “The Latest Phase of Negro Disfranchisement.” Harvard Law Review 26, no. 1 (1912): 46. Moreland, Laurence W., Tod A. Baker, and Robert P. Steed, eds. Blacks in Southern Politics. New York: Praeger, 1987. Moore, Leonard J. Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928. 1st ed. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991. “Negro Disfranchisement a Remedy.” The Seattle Republican (Seattle, WA), April 24, 1903. Newton, Michael. The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. “Northern Editor Gives His Views on the Negro Problem.” The Weekly Messenger (St. Martinsville, LA), April 4, 1903. “Nothing but Hypocrits [sic].” The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), Nov. 11, 1909. “Nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment.” The Colored American (Washington, DC), Sept. 29, 1900. Ogden, Frederic D. The Poll Tax in the South. University of Alabama Press, 1958. “Originator of the Movement.” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, IN), Aug. 13, 1900. Parker, Frank R. Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi After 1965. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990. Pauley, Garth E. LBJ’s American Promise: The 1965 Voting Rights Address. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Peirce, Neal R. The Deep South States of America: People, Politics, and Power in the Seven Deep South States. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1974. Pinkard, John E. African American Felon Disenfranchisement: Case Studies in Modern Racism and Political Exclusion Lfb Scholarly Pub Llc., 2013. “Republicans and the Negro Vote.” The Commoner (Lincoln, NE), Oct. 25, 1907. Rhodes, Terrel L. Republicans in the South: Voting for the State House, Voting for the White House. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. Rice, Arnold S. The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. “Right of Negroes to Vote in State Primaries.” Harvard Law Review 43, no. 3 (1930), 467-468. Riser, R. Volney. Defying Disfranchisement: Black Voting Rights Activism in the Jim Crow South, 1890-1908. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2010. Rush, Mark E., ed. Voting Rights and Redistricting in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. Schwartz, Bernard. Statutory History of the United States, Civil Rights (Part 1). Chelsea House Publishers/McGraw-Hill, 1971. Stevens, John Paul. Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. Little, Brown and Company, 2014. “The Constitutional Amendment and its Results.” The Progressive Farmer (Winston, NC), Nov. 11, 1902. “That Suffrage Plank.” The Progressive Farmer (Winston, NC), June 28, 1904. “The Negro Question.” New York Times, Jan. 21, 1890. “The Negro Vote.” The Semi-Weekly Messenger (Wilmington, NC), Jan. 9, 1903. “The Race Problem in the North.” The Day Book (Chicago, IL), Nov. 9, 1912. “The Race Problem Settled.” The Topeka State Journal (Topeka, KS), Aug. 26, 1912. “The Strange Career of State Action Under the Fifteenth Amendment.” Yale Law Journal 74, no. 8 (1965): 1448-1461. Thernstrom, Abigail. Voting Rights–and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections. Aei Press, 2009. Tindall, George B. “The Campaign for the Disfranchisement of Negroes in South Carolina.” Journal of Southern History 15, no. 2 (1949): 212-234.

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———. The Emergence of the New South 1913-1945. 1st ed. Louisiana State University Press, 1967. Trelease, Allen W. White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. Westport, CT: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. Tucker, James Thomas. The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots: Language Minorities and Political Access Under the Voting Rights Act. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. Upchurch, Thomas Adams. Legislating Racism: The Billion Dollar Congress and the Birth of Jim Crow. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. Wasniewski, Matthew, ed. Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007. 3rd ed. United States Congress, 2008. Weaver, Robert C. and Hortense W. Gabel. “Some Legislative Consequences of Negro Disfranchisement.” Journal of Negro Education 26, no. 3 (1957): 255-261. Webb, Clive, ed. Massive Resistance: Southern Opposition to the Second Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Whitby, Kenny J. The Color of Representation: Congressional Behavior and Black Interests. University of Michigan Press, 2000. Wood, Amy Louise, ed. The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 19: Violence. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Woodward, C. Vann. Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Zelden, Charles L. Voting Rights On Trial: A Sourcebook with Cases, Laws, and Documents. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2004.