Glennfs wrote: ↑Thu Oct 20, 2022 9:37 pm
I know having standards is so terrible. Especially for liberals
One of your dumb confederate governors was one of this country's most virulent anti-Black vote legislator.
He, too, stoked extremist, vigilante conservative political violence about so-called standards and why whites must disenfranchise African Americans.
Like the grandfather clauses of other southern states, yours included an "understanding" clause so illiterate white males like you were enabled to vote über Alles.
Benjamin Tillman - wiki
Disenfranchising the African American: 1895 state constitutional convention
Throughout his time as governor, Tillman had sought a convention to rewrite South Carolina's Reconstruction-era constitution. His main purpose in doing so was to disenfranchise African Americans. They opposed Tillman's proposal, as did others, who had seen previous efforts to restrict the franchise rebound against white voters. Tillman was successful in getting the legislature to place a referendum for a constitutional convention on the November 1894 general election ballot.[111] It passed by 2,000 votes statewide, the narrow margin gained, according to Kantrowitz, most likely through fraud.[112] John Gary Evans was elected Tillman's successor as governor.[113]
Opponents sued in the courts to overturn the referendum result; they were unsuccessful. During the convention, Tillman hailed it as "a fitting capstone to the triumphal arch which the common people have erected to liberty, progress, and Anglo-Saxon civilization since 1890". To assure white unity, Tillman allowed the election of Conservatives as about a third of delegates. The convention assembled in Columbia in September 1895,[114] consisting of 112 Tillmanites, 42 Conservatives, and six African Americans.[115] Tillman called black disenfranchisement "the sole cause of our being here".[3]
Tillman was the dominant figure of the convention, chairing the Committee on the Rights of Suffrage, which was to craft language to accomplish the disenfranchisement. Constrained by the requirement of the federal Fifteenth Amendment that men of all races be allowed to vote, the committee sought language that though superficially nondiscriminatory would operate or could be used to take the vote from most African Americans.[116]
Tillman spoke to the convention on October 31. In addition to supporting the provisions of the draft document, he recalled 1876:
How did we recover our liberty? By fraud and violence. We tried to overcome the thirty thousand majority by honest methods, which was a mathematical impossibility. After we had borne these indignities for eight years life became worthless under such conditions. Under the leadership and inspiration of Mart[in] Gary ... we won the fight.[117]
The adopted provisions, which came into force after the new constitution was ratified by the convention in December 1895, set a maze of obstacles before prospective voters. Voters had to be a resident of the state two years, the county one year, and the precinct for four months. Many African Americans were itinerant laborers, and this provision disproportionately affected them. A poll tax had to be paid six months in advance of the election, in May when laborers had the least cash.
Each registrant had to prove to the satisfaction of the county board of elections that he could read or write a section of the state constitution (in a literacy or comprehension test), or that he paid taxes on property valued at $300 or more. This allowed white registrars ample discretion to disenfranchise African Americans. Illiterate whites were shielded by the "understanding" clause, that allowed, until 1898, permanent registration to citizens who could "understand" the constitution when read to them. This also allowed officials great leeway to discriminate. Even if an African American maneuvered past all of these blocks, he still faced the manager of the polling place, who could demand proof he had paid all taxes owed—something difficult to show conclusively. Conviction of any of a long list of crimes that whites believed prevalent among African Americans was made the cause of permanent disenfranchisement, including bigamy, adultery, burglary, and arson. Convicted murderers not in prison had their franchise undisturbed.[118]
Tillman defended this on the floor of the Senate:
In my State there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters.... Now, I want to ask you, with a free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you going to do it? You had set us an impossible task.
We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled with them the worse off he got. As to his "rights"—I will not discuss them now. We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will.... I would to God the last one of them was in Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores.[119]
Nice history of "standards" you guys got.
White conservative male mentality about voting hasn't changed in 120+ years, so no wonder you personally applaud this dirty confederate in Florida grandstanding about arresting voters other than yourselves.
:problem:
