white political supremacy in the counterbalance
150 years ago this week Henry Browne Blackwell wrote an open letter to Southern state legislatures in which he put forward “the only ground of settlement between North and South which in [his] judgment can be successfully adopted.” More and more Northerners were becoming committed to negro suffrage as a prerequisite for re-admittance into the Union. Most Southern whites were adamantly opposed to black suffrage and wanted an unconditional readmission. This stalemate would either produce another Civil War, which the North would easily win, or the South would be forced to concede that blacks had equal rights with whites.
But Mr. Blackwell suggested an alternative. The South should out-radical the Radicals by insisting on universal suffrage and telling the North: “Give suffrage to all men and women of mature age and sound mind, and we will accept it as the basis of State and national reconstruction.” Mr. Blackwell maintained that it was in the white South’s interest to demand universal suffrage because “Your four millions of Southern white women will counterbalance your four millions of negro men and women, and thus the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged.”
He produced a chart showing how the numbers would work out:
numbers game
Mr. Blackwell also wrote that universal suffrage in New Jersey from 1776 until 1807 was not a disaster:
no catastrophe in New Jersey
Henry B. Blackwell was married to Lucy Stone. According to Wikipedia: “In the winter of 1866-67, Blackwell and Stone lectured together on universal suffrage and formed local Equal Rights Leagues in New York and New Jersey. They also traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby Charles Sumner against inclusion of the word “male” in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, which would penalize states for denying black suffrage but not woman suffrage.”
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Thanks to the1a, I learned today about the Green Book, a guide for black travelers published from 1936 until sometime after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its purpose was to list safe services and accommodations for blacks. As one of the book covers stated: “Carry your Green Book with you … you may need it!”
at The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, D.C.
