Gen. Robert Smalls, Columbia, S. C.:

My Dear General—I am very desirous of procuring a copy of each one of the speeches delivered in your Convention at Columbia on the suffrage question. If you have within easy reach any or all of them in print, I shall esteem it as a favor if you will kindly forward to me here such of them as you can readily spare. And let me say to you, my dear General, what has, I presume, been said to you already, that the dignity, courage and signal ability with which you and your Republican colleagues at Columbia, have asserted and maintained manhood rights and the just claims of all citizens to fair play under the supreme law of the land as well as under the civilization of our times, have touched the heart of the great North and called forth its soberest approval and its high admiration.

Indeed, it is felt here that, in your statements, your arguments and warnings, you have covered the whole case and done lasting honor to the Negro race and to American patriotism. All hail to you and your noble band of Spartans at Columbia!

Yours very sincerely,
E. C. BOSSETT.

Newberry, Oct. 28, 1895.

Hon. Robert Smalls:

Dear Sir: I take the liberty of expressing to you and through you to your colleagues, Messrs. Miller, Wigg and Whipper my very great gratification and approval of your and their very able and eloquent addresses in behalf of sound Republican principles, of justice towards all classes, and of fair and honest elections. You all did credit to your race, to the Republican party, and as I hope and believe to the cause of justice, for I have no doubt your efforts will have great influence outside the State. The prompt voting down of everything proposed, however fair and moderate, looked very much like pre-concerted action, and was not creditable to the Convention, either Conservatives or “Reformers.” But I should say, keep up the fight at every point along the line. Propose amendments to every objectionable section, even if they are voted down.

Very Respectfully,
B. O. DUNCAN.

Mr. Robert Smalls, Beaufort, S. C.:

Dear Sir—We have read over here the telegraphic report about the metaphorical bomb you threw into the Constitutional Convention, with the greatest glee. But not only was it the best sort of fuse—it was loaded, too, with the most explosive truth, (it seems to have scattered the ladies.) Such jokes as yours make an entrance for the truth when cold logic slides off like water from a duck’s back. Gen. Ben Butler’s phrase about the contraband of war converted more Democrats than Seward’s great speeches. And so I doubt not your “little joke” will do more to make the scales drop from people’s eyes than even Douglass’ admirable tract “Why is the Negro Lynched;” (Of this I will try to send you a copy.) Butler’s “Contraband” prepared the way for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Your resolution, so aptly timed, I regard as one of those immense things that influence destiny. I do not know how much it will be written about in the papers, but I believe it is only second in the importance of its influence to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because of its opportuneness. No occasion could have occurred—none can again occur—when that truth wrapped up in the words of your amendment could have reached home to the American people—could have penetrated the harness and armor of the late Rebel master. More than that, you have prepared the way for one of the greatest books on the relations of the Negro and the mulatto to the white race. I speak, of course, of Mr. Keeper’s book, “Minden Armies.” At once on reading your action and its result in the Convention, I wrote an article, intended to be light and attractive, and took it to one of the great London dailies, but it was returned as the subject was hardly of enough consequence to their constituency, their columns being so crowded. I should be very glad to have the best report of that meeting that is published, as I want to see the details in full. Address me.

Special to the World.

Columbia, S. C., Sept. 30—Five of the six Negro delegates to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention, which proposes to disfranchise the blacks, have joined in the following address to the North, through The World:

To the Editor of the World:

The Seventh Constitutional Convention called in South Carolina is in session. It has been called for the purpose of dealing with the Negro problem. Those who have advocated its assembling have been explicit in their declaration of the purposes to be accomplished—the disfranchisement of the Negro and the elimination of him entirely, not from a participation in elections, for he has not since 1886 had any show at all in any of the elections held in the State, but of the possibility of the Negro uniting with the conservative Democratic faction and thus oust from place and power those now in control of the Government. The chief obstacle in the way of accomplishing what is desired is the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution. This difficulty removed, there will be plain sailing.

The Hon. Benjamin Ryan Tillman, who is the head and front of the movement, has not been at all politic or hypocritical as to his intentions. He has said that his object is to disfranchise as many Negroes as he possibly can without disfranchising a single white man, except for crime.

What the Census Shows.

In the State, according to the census of the United States, taken in 1890, there were: Negroes over twenty-one years of age, 132,949; whites over twenty-one years of age, 102,567; Negro majority, 30,292. Of these are illiterate, 58,086 Negroes and 13,242 whites. Now, it will plainly be seen that a purely educational qualification, honestly administered, would give the whites 89,415, and the Negroes 74,851 votes; white majority, 14,564 votes.

But the nut for Tillman to crack is how he can disfranchise the Negro without disfranchising the 13,242 illiterate whites, whose votes would be lost entirely to his faction should the conservative element nominate and vote an independent ticket. The highest vote his faction has ever been able to poll in round numbers is 60,000, and the Conservatives 35,000. If Tillman’s faction, therefore, should lose 13,242 votes it would leave him only 46,758 votes, and the Conservatives 35,000 votes, and Tillman’s majority over the Conservatives would be only 11,758 votes.

It will readily be seen that the 74,851 Negro votes or any considerable part of them uniting with the Conservatives would make that faction master of the situation, and that is what Tillman wants to prevent. He has thus far hypnotized the whites of both factions With the scarecrow, “White supremacy,” which he has shaken in their faces on every occasion, and which he is shrewd enough to know has the same effect upon the whites as a red flag has upon an enraged bull.

Tillman’s Suffrage Plan.

The real truth is that “white supremacy” has never been endangered; for even in the days of Republican ascendancy all the great offices, and a large majority of all the offices, were held by white men, and no one ever thought of making it a Negro government. The suffrage plan, as we have been informed, as agreed upon by the committee, is as follows: Every male citizen twenty-one years of age who has not been convicted of crime, and is not an idiot or an inmate of a prison or a charitable institution, who can read a section of the Constitution to the satisfaction of the officers of election, or who can explain said section when read to him to the satisfaction of said officers, or who pays taxes on $500 worth of real property; or who can satisfy the election officers that he has paid all taxes due by him to the State, and who shall be duly registered according to law, shall be entitled to vote.

Every one of these provisions, as simple and just as they appear, when read by the uninitiated, are freighted with fraud, corruption and prostitution of the suffrage. For the officers of election are the sole judges of the qualification of the elector, and can at their will make the Negro vote or the white vote as large or as small as they choose.

Instruments of Fraud.

Everyone of these innocent little “ors” is the instrument of and contains infinite possibilities of fraud, and in the hands of election officers, all of whom are members of one party and of the same faction, are construed to mean one thing to one set of voters and another thing to another set, when they offer to register.

As Mr. Creelman has explained in his dispatches, the registration officer and his board will have the sole power to make voters in South Carolina, as the Supreme Court of the State has decided that there is no appeal to any Court of law from the acts of election officers. In short, the Convention has been called to legalize the frauds which have been perpetrated upon the elective franchise in this State since 1876. No one can tell or estimate what the vote will be, and that question can be answered only by the election officers.