EXCLUDED FROM VARIOUS STATES

171

charges upon the counties in which they settled. They were not permitted to give evidence in court in any cause where a white man was party to the controversy or prosecution, nor could they send their children to the public schools. About the middle of the century many of these laws were repealed, but, by the constitution adopted as late as 1851, they were denied the right to vote, and were excluded from the militia.1

Indiana at first permitted free negroes to settle in the state, provided they gave bonds, with approved security, not to become charges upon the counties where they lived; but, in 1851, a new constitution was adopted which specifically provided (Article XIII, Section 1) that "no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state after the adoption of this constitution."2

This clause in the constitution was adopted by over ninety thousand majority of the popular vote.3

In Illinois, following a series of laws of like import, an act was passed in 1853, "to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state," the third section of which declared it a misdemeanor for a negro or mulatto, bond or free, to come into the state with the intention of residing.' Section four of this act provided that any negro coming into the state in violation of the act should be fined and sold for a time to pay the fine and cost.

In 1862, in the Constitutional Convention then in session, the provisions of this statute were engrafted upon the organic law of the state. Article XVIII provided:

'History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, pp. 111-119. "History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, pp. 119-122. Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Wilson, Vol. II, p. 185.

"History of Negro Race in America, Williams, Vol. II, p. 123.

172

NORTHERN DREAD OF FREE NEGROES

Section 1. "No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state after the adoption of the constitution."

This article of the constitution was submitted to the popular vote separately from the body of the constitution, and, though the latter was rejected by over 16,000 majority, the former was made a part of the organic law of Illinois by a majority of 100,590. This vote was taken in August, 1862, and thus, barely a month before Mr. Lincoln's first Proclamation of Emancipation, the people of his own state, by a vote approaching unanimity, placed in their constitution this clause preventing free negroes from coming into their commonwealth.'

By the constitution of Oregon, adopted on November 9th, 1857, it was provided that:

"No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state . . . and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state or employ or harbor them."

This provision of the constitution was adopted by a popular vote of 8040 to 1081 against it.

If the people of the North thus regarded their few negroes as a dangerous and perplexing element, how much more should the people of Virginia hesitate in face of the conditions and problems which confronted them? If Indiana and Illinois, with populations of over three million

'Illinois Convention Journal, 1862, p. 1098.

"The Organic and Other General Laws of Oregon, 1843-72, pp. 97-98.

LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DANGER

173

whites and less than twenty thousand blacks, felt constrained to deny free negroes the right to enter their states, how much more should their sister, Virginia, with only one million whites and nearly a half million black slaves, fear to add to her already large free negro population?

This sense of danger to their political and social wellbeing arising from the threatened presence of negroes in large numbers was felt by the whites of the free states even after two years of civil war had wrought its changes in sentiment, and Mr. Lincoln's first Proclamation of Emancipation had been given to the world. In his message to Congress in December, 1862, the President, in urging his plan for national aid to facilitate emancipation and deportation, endeavored to meet and allay these fears. He said:

"But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make them more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country, and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could the one in any way disturb the seven?

"But why should emancipation South send the free people North? People of any color seldom run unless there be something to run from. Heretofore colored people to some extent have fled North from bondage and now perhaps from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted they will have neither to flee from. . . . And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?"

These appealing words of Mr. Lincoln show that in the very hour when the inspiring vision of emancipation was being held up before the people of the free states, they

'Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VI, pp. 140-141.

174 LINCOLN'S ESTIMATE OF THE DANGER

were balancing the satisfaction of its achievement with the dangers to their peace which might follow any substantial increase in their negro population.

"Cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?" were the reassuring words of Mr. Lincoln. Virginia had no such alternative.

SOME OF THE ALMOST INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTIES
WHICH EMBARRASSED EVERY PLAN OF EMANCI-
PATION (Concluded)

"MEN are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely." In these words Lord Macaulay fixes free discussion as a prime requisite to the right solution of problems, however difficult. It was one of the baneful features of slavery and the racial problems attending it that in the period just antedating the Civil War tolerant discussion was almost banished from the arena. As a rule, men of moderate views and sane counsels were driven to the rear, while the Fanatics of the North and the Fire-eaters of the South held the centre of the stage. Virginia was not wholly exempt from these conditions which in her case had their origin and growth in causes arising both within and beyond her borders.

As we have seen, slavery in Virginia existed in certain well-defined localities and was confined in ownership to a small minority of her people. Thus the divergence of interests between the two classes of her white population assumed a sectional character which was, in turn, intensified by reason of an archaic arrangement with respect to representation in her General Assembly. As heretofore explained, the representatives in her Legislature were apportioned among the various cities and counties of the commonwealth not on the basis of their respective white populations, but upon what was known as the "mixed basis"