In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

446 West Virginia’s Civil War–Era Constitution C h a p t e r 1 9 Voting, Holding Office, and the Word “White” The proposed Article 3 of the constitution was part of the Standing Committee on Bill of Rights and Elections report, along with proposed Article 1, “The State,” and Article 2, the “Bill of Rights,” reported by Chairman Samuel Woods on 1 February. Debate on Article 3 began on 10 February after the initial consideration of Articles 1 and 2 in the Committee of the Whole. Review of the proposed 3rd article, “Elections of Officers,” detonated several of the most explosive issues in the convention involving African American suffrage, the method of voting, a tax requirement for the franchise, and voter registration. More emotional and more prejudiced than the usual outpourings, bombastic and sometimes irrational debate surged over the Convention Hall. These issues intermingled without clear distinction and separation. The first amendment introduced to alter the committee’s report on Article 3 compelled a return to a restricted whites-only franchise and a taxpaying requirement for voting. The bill of rights and elections committee had basically recommended the Flick Amendment to the West Virginia Constitution for adoption in the new frame. It provided for voting by all resident male citizens of the state without distinction. Its words were, “The male citizens of the State shall be entitled to vote at all elections held within election districts, in which they respectively reside; but no person who is a minor, or of unsound mind, or a pauper, or who is under conviction of treason, felony, or bribery in an election, or who had not been a resident of the State one year, and of the county in which he offers to vote for thirty days next preceding such offer, shall be permitted to vote while such disability continues.” Thomas Maslin of the Hardy/Grant delegate district introduced the inevitable amendment requiring a return to an unobtainable past. Maslin’s substitute amendment restricted suffrage to every white male citizen. Besides requiring a one-year state residency for voting, it added a six-month residency requirement for the county, state, or town. It supplemented the committee’s restrictions on the 446 Voting, Holding Office, and the Word “White” 447 franchise by banning any individual “ who is returned delinquent for his taxes for the year next preceding such election, and who fails to produce a receipt for the amount for which he is so returned.”1 Maslin’s proposal carried the key word, “white,” but it offered a constitutional escapeclauserecognizingthesupremacyoftheFourteenthandFifteenthAmendments to the United States Constitution. After specifying skin color, sex, and a minimum age of twenty-one, it extended the franchise to “such persons as, at the time of offering , the Constitution of the United States shall authorize to vote, shall exercise the right of suffrage in this State.” This recognition of constitutional reality revealed how contrived the argument for an exclusive white man’s franchise had become. Just because what resulted was in some sense a shadow debate, perhaps of black intimidation and racial ventilation, did not make it any less serious. Debate over the tax-paying requirement for the franchise also carried serious racial implications. John T. Peerce wanted to extend the Maslin amendment. He recommended that it extend the voting ban to those under conviction for treason, felony, and bribery in an election.2 In a rambling extremist speech, Maslin justified his motion so that the whole world knew that the convention delegates believed in a white man’s government. For the last seven or eight years, suffrage had not been based on color, intelligence, or property, but in order to vote a man had to be “a nigger, a carper bagger, a scalawag, orarenegade.”Eventhoughtheconstitutionhadbeenamended,hewantedtheword “white” in the state frame. If the “general government” wishes others to vote such as “the negro, the mullatto, the saddle-colored gentlemen, the Irish, the Dutch, the Chinese,thescallawag,andthecarpetbagger,wemustsubmit.” Headded thatfifteen years ago, “old Virginia had regarded the right to vote the most sacred known to man. . . . [N]owadays the voter sneaked up, dropped a little slip of paper through a hole in the door, and then got away lively, as though he had done something he was ashamed of.” Maslin hoped that his arm might be palsied if he attempted to strike the word “white.”3 Maslin thought it was entirely proper to ban a man, who has so little interest in government as not to pay taxes...

Share