Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/33

Rh enfranchisement, but bitterly protesting against enfranchisement, or, as they termed it, rebel suffrage, itself. It was the thing they fought, not the mere shape in which it appeared, and my colleague ought to know it.

But there the opposition did not stop. It organized itself for the purpose of defeating any indorsement of the enfranchising amendment in the Republican State convention, and of carrying the nomination of a candidate for governor hostile to it. This candidate was Mr. McClurg. In order to accomplish this, things were done probably without precedent in the history of political parties.

I ask the pardon of the Senate for going into details; but they are interesting, and those who desire to study the art of wire-pulling as part of the civilization of our times will have an opportunity to learn something. The opponents of the constitutional amendment commanded a majority in the State central committee. The circumstance that the colored citizens of Missouri were to vote this year for the first time was taken advantage of to insure a majority in the convention against enfranchisement and for their candidate.

It was customary with the Republican party in Missouri that, on the basis of the general election last preceding, every one hundred and fifty Republican voters should have one delegate in the State convention. The colored citizens had never voted, but the majority of the State committee proceeded upon the presumption that every colored man would vote the Republican ticket and ought therefore to be represented in the convention. This appeared rather novel, yet the general proposition was acquiesced in. But then, instead of simply adding the colored citizens, according to the last census, to the aggregate number of Republican voters in each county, the State committee decreed to the colored men, as a distinct