Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [400]
To admit ignorant blacks to political privileges, white critics charged, would inevitably produce a massive pool of voters that could be easily manipulated by the employers who commanded their labor and by unscrupulous politicians who would play upon their expectations. Somehow, the black man as a voter could never be perceived as acting in his own best interests. Seeking to reject that stigma, black spokesmen, in addition to citing a wartime record of service to the Union, suggested that even under the most oppressive conditions of slavery, the black man had not necessarily been unmindful of what was best for himself and his family.
Now, every candid minded man knows full well that the former slaves have always done just what their masters never wanted them to do. The master never wanted his slave to run away, or to eat his swine and cattle, no matter how injustly or inhumanly he was treated or how near starvation he might be. Yet it was done in both of these instances. In fact, to “fool and worry old massa” had become second nature to the slave.62
To the suggestion that the “superior knowledge and cunning” of the whites would overawe them at the polls, a black meeting in Virginia responded that unlike many enfranchised whites they could be depended upon not to vote for “traitors” or at the dictation of “the mitred priest” or the “rich rumseller.” Nor would they ever abuse suffrage by voting to take their states out of the Union. “Mr. Judge, we always knows who’s our friends and who isn’t,” a black preacher in Georgia assured a skeptical northern dignitary.
We knows the difference between the Union ticket and the Rebel ticket. We may not know all about all the men that’s on it; but we knows the difference between the Union and the Rebel parties. Yes, sir; we knows that much better than you do! Because, sir, some of our people stand behind these men at the table, and hear ’em talk; we see ’em in the house and by the wayside; and we know ’em from skin to core, better than you do or can do, till you live among ’em as long, and see as much of ’em as we have.63
With equal disdain, blacks dismissed the contention that they would necessarily vote for the old ruling class by virtue of the economic power it still wielded. “Have the employers of white voters always controlled their votes?” one black petition queried. “Let the history of elections answer.” If former slaves voted the same way as their former masters, that would only suggest that their former masters had become enlightened enough to accept new ideas and political principles.64
The only legitimate test for suffrage, most blacks agreed, lay not in a person’s literacy or economic well-being but in his loyalty to the government and democratic principles. The Civil War demonstrated to them the absence of any necessary correlation between property holding, literacy, and loyalty to the government; indeed, said one black newspaper, “the errors of ignorance have done less harm than have the graft and venality of the better informed.” Having taken this position, blacks rejected the popular suggestion that they needed to be prepared for suffrage and should only be gradually introduced to political privileges. That, said the New Orleans Tribune, smacked too much of the calculated deceit whites had employed before the war to rationalize the perpetuation of slavery. “They talked of preparing and educating the blacks, so as to qualify them for liberty; but at the same time they were careful that the slaves should not educate or elevate themselves. If we admit the objection, it will hold good forever.… The actual enjoyment of new rights is the only way to get accustomed to and become fit for their exercise.” Besides, to postpone suffrage until blacks acquired an education penalized them for previous restrictions over which they had no control and deprived the Union of their much-needed