The following is the plan reported by the suffrage committee, which was adopted by the Convention, and which is now a part of the Constitution of South Carolina:

ARTICLE II.

RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE.

Section 1. All elections by the people shall be by ballot and elections shall never be held or the ballots counted in secret.

Sec. 2. Every qualified elector shall be eligible to any office to be voted for, unless disqualified by age as prescribed in this Constitution. But no person shall hold two offices of honor or profit at the same time, except that any person holding another office may at the same time be an officer in the military and a notary public.

Sec. 3. Every male citizen of this State and of the United States 21 years of age and upwards, not laboring under the disabilities named in this Constitution and possessing the qualification required by it, shall be an elector.

Sec. 4. The qualifications for suffrage shall be as follows:

(a) Residence in the State for two years, in the county one year, in the polling precinct in which the elector offers to vote four months, and the payment six months before any election of any poll tax then due and payable; provided, however, that ministers in charge of an organized church and teachers of public schools shall be entitled to vote after six months residence in the State, if otherwise qualified.

(b) Registration, which shall provide for the enrollment of every elector once in ten years and also an enrollment during each and every year of every elector not previously registered under the provisions on this article.

(c) Up to January 1, 1898, all male persons of voting age applying for registration who can read any section in this Constitution submitted to them by the registration officer, or understand and explain it when read to them by the registration officer shall be entitled to register and become electors. A separate record of all persons registered before January 1, 1898, sworn to by the registration officer shall be filed, one copy with the clerk of court and one in the office of the secretary of the state, on or before February 1, 1898, and such persons shall remain during life qualified electors unless disqualified by the other provisions of this article. The certificate of the clerk of court or Secretary of State shall be sufficient evidence to establish the right of said citizens to any subsequent registration and the franchise under the limitations herein imposed.

(d) Any person who shall apply for registration after January 1st, 1898, if otherwise qualified, shall be registered; provided, that he can both read and write any section of this Constitution submitted to him by the registration officer, or can show that he owns and has paid all taxes collectible during the previous year on property in this State assessed at $300 or more.

(e) Managers of elections shall require of every elector offering to vote at any election, before allowing him to vote, proof of the payment of all taxes, including poll tax, assessed against him and collectible during the previous year. The production of a certificate or of the receipt of the officer authorized to collect such taxes shall be conclusive proof of the payment thereof.

(f) The general assembly shall provide for issuing to each duly registered elector a certificate of registration and shall provide for the renewal of such certificate when lost, mutilated or destroyed, if the applicant is still a qualified elector under the provisions of this Constitution, or if he has been registered as provided in subsection (c).

Sec. 5. Any person denied registration shall have the right to appeal to the Court of Common Pleas or any judge thereof, and thence to the Supreme Court, to determine his right to vote under the limitations imposed in this article, and on such appeal the hearing shall be de novo and the General Assembly shall provide by law for such appeal and for the correction of illegal and fraudulent registration, voting and all other crimes against the election laws.

Sec. 6. The following persons are disqualified from being registered or voting:

First. Persons convicted of burglary, arson, obtaining goods or money under false pretenses, perjury, forgery, robbery, bribery, adultery, bigamy, wife-beating, housebreaking, receiving stolen goods, breach of trust with fraudulent intent, fornication, sodomy, incest, assault with intent to ravish, miscegenation, larceny, or crimes against the election laws; provided, that the pardon of the Governor shall remove such disqualification.

Second. Persons who are idiots, insane, paupers supported at the public expense, and persons confined in any public prison.

Sec. 7. For the purpose of voting, no person shall be deemed to have gained or lost a residence by reason of his presence or absence while employed in the service of the United States, nor while engaged in the navigation of the waters of this State, or the United States or of the high seas, nor while a student of any institution of learning.

Sec. 8. The general assembly shall provide by law for the registration of all qualified electors and shall prescribe the manner of holding elections and of ascertaining the results, of the same; provided, at the first registration under this Constitution, and until the 1st of January, 1898, the registration shall be conducted by a board of three discreet persons in each county, to be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate. For the first registration to be provided for under this Constitution, the registration books shall be kept open for at least six consecutive weeks, and thereafter from time to time at least one week in each month, up to 30 days next preceding the first election to be held under this Constitution. The registration books shall be public records open to the inspection of any citizen at all times.

Sec. 9. The general assembly shall provide for the establishment of polling precincts in the several counties of the State and those now existing shall so continue until abolished or changed. Each elector shall be required to vote at his own precinct, but provision shall be made for his transfer to another precinct upon his change of residence.

Sec. 10. The general assembly shall provide by law for the regulation of party primary elections and punishing fraud at the same.

Sec. 11. The registration books shall close at least 30 days before an election, during which time transfers and registration shall not be legal; provided, persons who will become of age during that period shall be entitled to registration before the books are closed.

Sec. 12. Elector in municipal elections shall possess the qualifications and be subject to the disqualifications herein prescribed. The production of a certificate of registration from the registration officers of the county as an elector at a precinct included in the incorporated city or town in which the voter desires to vote is declared a condition prerequisite to his obtaining a certificate of registration for municipal elections, and in addition he must have been a resident within the corporate limits at least four months before the election and have paid all taxes due and collectible for the preceding fiscal year. The general assembly shall provide for the registration of all voters before each election in municipalities; provided, that nothing herein contained shall apply to any municipal election which may be held prior to the general election of the year 1896.

Sec. 13. In authorizing a special election in any incorporated city or town in this State for the purpose of bonding the same, the general assembly shall prescribe as a condition precedent to the holding of said election a petition from a majority of the freeholders of said city or town as shown by its tax books, and at such elections all electors of such city or town who are duly qualified for voting under section 12 of this article, and who have paid all taxes, State, county, municipal, for the previous year, shall be allowed to vote, and the vote of a majority of those voting in said elections shall be necessary to authorize the issue of said bonds.

Sec. 14. Electors shall in all cases except treason, felony or breach of peace, be privileged from arrest on the days of election during their attendance at the polls and going and returning therefrom.

Sec. 15. No power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage in this State.

The Convention having under consideration the Legislative Department Ordinance, when Section 34 was reached, which reads:

“The marriage of white persons with a Negro or a mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful and void;”

he proposed an amendment adding after the word “void” in the second line, the words “and any white person who lives and cohabits with a Negro, mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be disqualified from holding any office of emolument or trust in this State, and the offspring of any such living or cohabiting shall bear the name of the father, and shall be entitled to inherit and acquire property the same as if they were legitimate.” He then spoke as follows:

“Mr. President: I hope this amendment will be adopted. Sir, there is not a colored man or woman of any respectability, not only in South Carolina, but in the whole country, that does not oppose the intermarriage of the races. There are very few, if any exceptions, in South Carolina, where a white man ever married a respectable colored woman or a colored man married a respectable white woman. The facts in the case are, that the white woman that marries a Negro man as a rule has been an outcast by her race, and the colored woman that marries a white man, has no standing with the respectable women of her race, and the white man no better with his. I cannot see why you want to prevent the intermarriage of the races, when they want to legitimize their actions, unless you adopt my amendment, prohibiting the cohabitation of the white men with the Negro women. Mr. President, and gentlemen of this Convention let me give you a little statistic, showing you, if it is possible, to do so, the wrongs you, or your fore-fathers have done to my race. Let us stop it, if we can; I fear not, but let us put it in the fundamental laws of this State.

“The number of Americans of African descent, wholly and in part, returned to the census bureau in 1890 was 7,470,035. These were divided as follows: Pure Africans, 6,337,980; mulattoes 956,987; quadroons, 105,132; octoroons, 69,936. The total mixed bloods, white and black, was 1,132,060 in the whole country, and a third of these are above the Mason and Dixon line.

“Mr. President, a careful perusal of the census, also history, shows that more than three-fourths of the mothers of this large number of mixed blood whom you seek to legislate against, are colored women, if so, who could have been their fathers? Do not any of you rise and deny this, because I am no lawyer, but know enough about it that I cannot impeach my own witness. A careful perusal of the census, also shows in the State, that this one-fourth that lives beyond Mason and Dixon’s line shows fully that three-fourths of the one-fourth of the mixed blood were born in the Southern States. So you see, gentlemen, you are responsible for the wrongs that have been done; let us in the name of God, and in behalf of virtue, try and put a stop to this cohabitation. I could but admire a few days ago, when the gentlemen upon this floor spoke so highly of the women of this State, I am mindful of the fact that when they spoke of the women of this State that they spoke of the white women. I can but echo their sentiment, and do say, that I believe them to be as pure women as can be found anywhere in the world. I have not been strongly in favor of female suffrage, but since your discussion on the Divorce Law I feel I shall have to vote for the suffrage in order that they may pass a law or laws that will make you as pure as they are. We have, sir, as pure colored women in South Carolina and in this country, as any race upon this earth. Sir, that evil, known as slavery caused all of this. This wrong was done by you all, owning them as your slaves. Sir, no act of yours will prevent a white man from marrying a colored woman or a colored man from marrying a white woman, who have the means to go in another State. There are many States in the Union, that do not prevent them marrying and they can go and get married and you cannot help yourself. I have in my mind distinctly, a colored man and a white woman who were in love with each other, and who wanted to get married, but this man recited to her the law on your Statute book that prohibited the intermarriage of the races. This lady stated that there were no such laws in the district of Columbia, New York or Massachusetts. She was as pure a lady as there is. I only cite this because it is a matter that you cannot control except directly in the State. This entire matter, sir, has no right in the Constitution of the State, if your women are as pure as you stated, and I have reason to believe that they are, they can be trusted; then why the necessity of this being placed in the Constitution? Can you not trust yourselves? Is it because that these wrongs have been perpetrated here, since the formation of the Government, that you feel that you can’t be trusted? When I say you, I mean the white men of the entire State. I fear not; hence I trust the amendment will be adopted. These wrongs have been done, and are still being done, it is not done by colored men, it is done by white men. If a Negro should improperly approach a white woman, his body would be hanging on the nearest tree filled with air holes before daylight the next morning—and perhaps properly so. If the same rule were applied on the other side, and white men who insulted or debauched Negro women were treated likewise, this Convention would have to be adjourned sine die for lack of a quorum.

“The gentleman called me to order stating that I had reflected on the Convention. I do not wish to reflect on the Convention. I do not wish to reflect on the Convention, but do say, that if he has clean hands he will keep his seat, because I do not mean to reflect on any man who objects to the intermarriage of a Negro or Mulatto woman with a white man, and is willing to prohibit the cohabitation, which is the root and branch of this evil. Stop this evil, and there will be no occasion for your intermarriage law. Sir, I oppose the intermarriage of the races as strongly as you do, and I feel that I echo the sentiment of the respectable class of both sides; because with few exceptions, we find these marriages are among the lower element of both races, and, therefore, they degrade and not elevate either race. But sir, don’t tell me that you will make a law to prevent lawful marriages and give full license to illicit marriages. Watch the census of each decade, you will clearly see that this vice is decreasing among our people; as they are progressing educationally they are raising themselves out of this degradation, that your race has placed upon them. Now sir, I say, prohibit intermarriage of the races, also make a law as binding against cohabitation. Then you will make your men as true as your women. And our race will be freed from a vice, that is as degrading as the system of slavery. Again sir, in behalf of my race, I hope that the amendment to the section under consideration will be adopted and become a part of the Constitution of the State.”

The introduction of this amendment caused a great deal of discussion, which showed plainly that South Carolina had no idea of punishing white men for wrong done to colored women, nor would she allow the wrong to be rectified, and the original Section 34 was adopted, and is now the fundamental law of the State.

On page (20-22) we have selected two editorials on this amendment, also a telegram on page 23.

The following is clipped from Section 6 on Education. There are in this State several thousand soldiers who fought for the perpetuity of the Union, yet they are compelled to pay the poll tax ten years longer than these who sought to destroy it.

“There shall be assessed on all taxable polls in the State between the ages of 21 and 60 years (excepting Confederate soldiers above the age of 50 years) an annual tax of $1 on each poll, the proceeds of which tax shall be expended for school purposes in the several school districts in which it is collected.”

Claflin College was advocated for colored students, taught by Negroes; the best, wherever they could be found, should be secured.

The committee on order, style and revision had the work ready, and all that was needed was the signature of the members to make the Constitution final. The members went up in county delegations and signed the new organic law.

President Evans and Vice President Jones signed the new Constitution as the officers present, and then came Abbeville and the other counties on down. When Beaufort was reached, Delegate Smalls asked to be excused from signing the Constitution, as he would not sign a Constitution with such an article on suffrage. He was unanimously excused. He was the only member of the Beaufort delegation present.

Some one during the progress of the signing sent up a resolution that members not signing the Constitution should not be paid. Gen. Smalls said he would walk home rather than sign the instrument. President Evans did not press the resolution, and members generally thought lightly of the matter, and it was not even put to the Convention.

Editorial from the (N. Y.) Press, Oct. 5, 1895.

We can recall no more brilliant moral victory of a parliamentary minority than that gained on Thursday in the South Carolina Constitutional Convention by the representatives of the race about to be disfranchised for lack of intelligence wherewith to vote. In so characterizing the attack of these black delegates we have in mind the extraordinary ends accomplished with minorities by Mr. Randall, Mr. Blaine and Mr. Reed, the chief parliamentarians of our generation.

In this case the white majority laid themselves open to the flank movement, which Robert Smalls had evidently meditated throughout the session, by introducing a quite supererogatory article for the amendment of mixed marriages. The black leader instantly moved an amendment providing that illicit as well as legal unions between the races should be prohibited. He proposed to disqualify all men—and this of course would mean only white men—who were parties to such unions. He proposed that the offspring of such unions should take their fathers’ names.

Senator Tillman, who seems, though the author of this new secession of South Carolina, to be the only man in the Convention who appreciates in the slightest degree the effect of its actions upon outside public opinion, proceeded at once to save his record by espousing the Negro cause. He cut himself loose promptly from the majority in the course into which he knew its provincial ignorance would direct it. He went so far as roundly to berate his own chairman for his attempt to choke off the plea of the black men for the integrity of black women.

It was hardly a debate that followed. It was an arraignment which culminated when Mr. Smalls, after approving the punishment which lynch law has meted out to the worst offenders of his race, said:

“If the same rule were applied on the other side and white men were treated likewise, I fear this Convention would have to be adjourned for lack of a quorum.”

The “burst of laughter” which followed this threw an interesting light on the morals and manners of South Carolina. It showed the state of civilization depicted in “Tom Jones.” A Convention composed entirely of Squire Westerns would have met such an impeachment in a precisely similar way. Having satisfied their sense of humor the delegates killed the amendment and passed the mixed marriages article.

This seizure of a parliamentary advantage in so sudden and effective a manner as to cause the majority leader to abandon his forces and leave them to expose their moral nakedness to the world was more than equal to Mr. Blaine’s rout of the Rebel Brigadiers in the famous Amnesty Debate. For those gentry managed to fan and sponge Ben Hill into the ring again, and these remained “out of time.”

And in no one other way could the Negroes have so convincingly proved to the world their right to the ballot than by this victory of black mind over white matter. It is now made plain, as it was made plain by the first laws passed by the unreconstructed Legislature of the same State after the war, that the fear of Negro domination is not born so much of a regard for the numbers as for the developed intellectual ability of the blacks. It is not Negro ignorance, but Negro intelligence, that is feared.

Editorial from the News and Courier, the Leading Democratic Paper of Charleston, S. C., Nov. 23, 1895.

The troublesome matter of miscegenation was settled finally by the adoption of the provision that “the marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto, or person who shall have one-eighth of Negro blood, shall be unlawful and void” hereafter. The provision would have been strengthened and improved by the adoption of Gen. Smalls’ proposed addition to it that “any white person who lives and cohabits with such persons should be disqualified from holding office of emolument or trust in this State, and the offspring of such living or cohabiting shall bear the name of the father,” but the Convention rejected the addition by the largest vote recorded recently. Its action was a mistake. The addition was a proper corollary to the section adopted, and should have been extended to disqualify from voting, as well as holding office, the class of offenders at which it was aimed. Of the two offences—miscegenation within the marriage bond and miscegenation without it—the latter is the greater social evil. It should have been treated accordingly. The action of the Convention in this instance and its action of the preceding day in reducing the age of consent to the limits of childhood will inevitably be construed together to the injury and reproach to the State. Both decisions should not stand. Taken together they offer a premium for a condition of affairs which is condemned alike by every dictate of sound morals and of the public sentiment of the State. Miscegenation is contrary to the law of nature.