HISTORY NEGRO CITIZENSHIP.          705

place the freedmen should occupy in their political sys-
tem that should be in harmony with the fact of his lib-
erty and national citizenship; for as has been said citi-
zenship and suffrage were separated, Congress insisting
that citizenship should no longer be left in the keeping
of the States, but should be put under the shield of the
national government.
  Of the eleven States that participated in the secession
movement, Tennessee alone accepted this fair and hon-
orable proposition as a basis of reconstruction and res-
toration; the remaining ten treated it with the utmost
contumely. They seemed to spurn the idea, that Con-
gress should ask for some guarantee of just treatment of
the race whom the nation had liberated as the condition
of its own preservation, some pledge of loyalty from
those who had sought to undo the Federal Union.
Under the pressure of external power, the South, like
Pharoah, had said, in assenting to the Thirteenth Amend-
ment, that the oppressed might go free. But upon the
removal of that pressure, had pursued him with an army
of horsemen and chariots in the form of unjust and op-
pressive laws before any Red Sea had intervened be-
tween his bondage and his freedom.
  But prior to this action of the South on the 14th
Amendment, in the Fall of 1866, a new Congress had
been elected, the circumstances of which were peculiar
andhighly significant. The country voted under the
profound excitement created by the long series of out-
rages which had extended all over the South, and which
had just culminated in the awful tragedy at New Or-
leans. Protection to the loyal element in the South,
white and black, not only as a measure of justice to
them, but also as a means of permanently preserving
the fruits of the great civil struggle, became the para-
mount issue of the campaign.      And the result was
something more than a party triumph.  It was the de-
liberate and decisive expression of opinion by the great
loyal North on the subject of reconstruction. It had




			

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 15, Num. 3

History of Negro Citizenship

W.

Volume:  15
Issue Number:  03
Page Number:  689
Date:  01/1899