The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study

Chapter XVII. Negro Suffrage

CHAPTER XVII. NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 50. The Significance of the Experiment.-The indiscriminate granting of universal suffrage to freedmen and foreigners was one of the most daring experiments of a too venturesome nation. In the case of the Negro its only justification was that the ballot might serve as a weapon of defence for helpless ex-slaves, and would at one stroke enfranchise those Negroes whose education and standing entitled them to a voice in the government. There can be no doubt but that the wisest provision would have been an educational and property qualification impartially enforced against ex-slaves and immigrants. In the absence of such a provision it was certainly more just to admit the untrained and ignorant than to bar out all Negroes in spite of their qualifications; more just, but also more dangerous. TI10se who from time to time have discussed the results of this experiment have usually looked for their facts in the wrong place, i. e., in the South. Under the peculiar conditions still prevailing in the South no fair trial of the Negro voter could have been made. The" carpet-bag" governnlents of reconstruction time were in no true sense the creatures of Negro voters, nor is there to-day a Southern State where free untrammeled Negro suffrage prevails. It is then to Northern communities that one must turn to study the Negro as a voter, and the result of the experiment in Pennsylvania while not decisive is certainly instructive. 51. The History of Negro Suffrage in Pennsylvania.The laws for Pennsylvania agreed upon in England in 1682 declared as qualified electors" every inhabitant in the said province, that is or shall be a purchaser of one (368) Sect. 51.] Negro Suffrage -in Pen nsylva nia. hundred acres of land or upwards, .... and every person that hath been a servant or bondsman, and is free by his service, that shall have taken up his fifty acres of land, and cultivated twenty thereof;" and also some other taxpayers.' These provisions were in keeping with the design of partially freeing Negroes after fourteen years service and contemplated without doubt black electors, at least in theory. It is doubtful if many Negroes voted under this provision although that is possible. In the call for the Convention of 1776 no restriction as to color was mentioned ," and the constitution of that year gave the right of suffrage to " every freeman of the full age of twenty-one years, having resided in this State for the space of one whole year." 3 Probably some Negro electors in Pennsylvania helped choose the framers of the Constitution . In the Convention of 1790 no restriction as to color was adopted and the suffrage article as finally decided upon read as follows : "Article III, Section I. In elections by the citizens, every freeman of the age of twenty-one years, having resided in the State two years next before the election, and within that time paid a State or county tax, which shall have been assessed at least six months before the election) shall enjoy the rights of an elector." 4 "Nothing in the printed minutes of the convention indicates any attempt in the convention to prohibit Negro suffrage, but Mr. Albert Gallatin declared in 1837: "I have a lively recollection that in some stages of the discussion the proposition pending before the convention limited 1 "Minutes of the Conventions of 1776 and 1790," (Ed. 182 5) pp. 32-33; Cf. p. 26. 2 Ibid., pp. 38-39. 3 tu«, P.57. 4 Ibid., p. 300 . cr. " Purdon's Digest," sixth edition. 4.96.159] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 14:38 GMT) 37° Negro Suffrage. [Chap. XVII. the rig-lIt of suffrage to ' free white citizens,' etc., and that the word white was struck out on my motion." [) It was alleged afterward that in 1795 the question came before the High Court of Errors and Appeals and that its decision denied the right to Negroes. No written decision of this sort was ever found, however, and it is certain that for nearly a half century free Negroes voted in parts of Pennsylvania." As the Negro population increased, however, and ignorant and dangerous elements entered, and as the slavery controversy grew warmer, the feeling against Negroes increased and with it opposition to their right to vote. In July, 1837, the Supreme Court sitting at Sunbury took up the celebrated case of Hobbs et ale against Fogg. Fogg was a free Negro and taxpayer...