Continued disagreement of the representatives of Great Britain and the United States resulted. Their failure to agree upon the provisions of the Convention of 1822-that matters under dispute be referred to arbitration made the work of this convention of little avail. Clay's offer of settlement was not favorably received in Great Britain. As to a basis of compromise, Clay said that the "total number of slaves on the definitive list was 3,601; that the entire value of all the property for which the indemnity was claimed including interest might be stated at $2,693,120." Realizing that this large sum would never be secured, Clay suggested that $1,151,800 might be used as the minimum in the negotiation. He used as a guide the fact that Parliament had appropriated 250,000 pounds to cover the awards of the commission. This sum, Mr. King observed also, was nearly the sum mentioned as a minimum by Clay in his instructions to him. Even with this information, the commissioners made little progress. On the other hand, Mr. Vaughan, the British Envoy at Washington, said April 12, 1826, "that His Majesty's Government regretted to find themselves under the absolute impossibility of accepting the terms of compromise offered by the envoy from the United States in London." He did not admit, moreover, that the question of interest should be referred to arbitration, but maintained that the demand was unwarranted by the convention and unfounded by the Law Officers of the Crown.76 In reply to his observation, Clay informed Vaughan of the fact that Great Britain's representatives had refused to refer many questions to arbitration and that if this refusal to cooperate in this regard should be upheld it would virtually be making him the final judge of every question of difference that arose in the joint commission.77 This disagreement continued until 1825, when the commissioners met to collect and weigh evidence. Soon thereafter, Albert Gallatin, who had been appointed 76 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Volume VI, page 344; 746. 77 Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 746. Envoy of the United States to London, was authorized to treat with Canning on the oft-discussed question. During the first interview he discovered that, while there was a great reluctance to recede from the ground already taken by Jackson, there was also a disposition to settle that controversy. 78 Following the instructions given to King, Gallatin used the 250,000 pounds as the basis of settlement. This sum he was authorized to accept. He, however, did not make this offer known immediately but waited for the formal offer of $1,200,000 from the British Government; and in conformity with his instruction of a later date, Gallatin offered as an ultimatum an acceptance of $1,204,960, which the British Government reluctantly agreed to pay.79 On November 13, 1826, a convention to carry out this agreement was concluded. The amount specified above was to cover all claims under the award of the Emperor of Russia. It provided, moreover, that the money was to be paid in Washington, in the current money of the United States, in two installments; the first twenty days after the British Minister in the United States should have been officially notified of the ratifications of the convention, and the second August 1, 1827. In this way the convention of 1822 was annulled, save as to the two articles relating to the average value of slaves which had been carried into effect, and as to the third article as related to the definitive list which had also been carried out.80 This ended the work of the board. After ratification had been exchanged the board adjourned, March 26, 1827. This left one more matter to be disposed of, that of executing the provisions of the commission of 1826. In compliance with this Congress passed an act, March 2, 1827, to carry out this agreement.81 A convention was thereby called to meet in Washington July 10th and proceed with the consideration of claims, "allowing such fur78 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. VI, p. 348. 79 Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 352. ther time for the production of evidence as they should think just." As soon as the claims were validated and the principal amounts ascertained seventy-five per cent of the principal was paid with the explanation that when all claims were settled, the other twenty-five per cent would be paid, if the fund permitted it. If it did not, then the remainder would be distributed in proportion to the sums awarded. In these negotiations, Langdon Cheves and Henry Sewell, who had only recently represented the United States in London, together with James Pleasants of Virginia, were appointed commissioners. They considered not only the claims on the definitive list but also those deposited in the Department of State and which had not been previously adjusted. The conflicting interests of payments and the inconclusive evidence which were presented made the work of this convention more difficult. The records were very poor and contained little of the information desired. For this reason many claims were denied; especially was this true in Maryland and Virginia.82 Many of the claimants of other States nevertheless were compensated. Seventy-five per cent was granted them, the sum totalling $600,000 being paid. This condition of affairs caused a clash among the 1,100 claimants, 700 of whose petitions on the definitive list were examined. Many other claimants were seeking evidence to secure compensation. They were not successful, however, for Cheves opposed the admission of hearsay testimony as well as the testimony of slaves. Well informed as to the progress of the commission, Congress passed an act May 15, 1828,83 specifying August 31st as the last day on which the commission would meet. Of that entire amount awarded $1,197,422.18 had been paid to the claimants. The remaining sum was "distributed and paid ratably," to all the claimants to whom compensation had been made. The work of the Convention of 1827 thus ended. ARNETT G. LINDSAY 82 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, Vol. VI, page 855. THE NEGRO IN POLITICS1 A treatise on the Negro in politics since the emancipation of the race may be divided into three periods; that of the Reconstruction, when the Negroes in connection with the interlopers and sympathetic whites controlled the Southern States, the one of repression following the restoration of the radical whites to power, and the new day when the Negro counts as a figure in politics as a result of his worth in the community and his ability to render the parties and the government valuable service. While the echoes of the Civil War were dying away, the South attempted to reduce the Negro to a position of peonage by the passage of the black codes. Many northern men led by Sumner and Stevens, who at first tried to secure the cooperation of the best whites, became indignant because of this attitude of the South and were reduced to the necessity of forcing Negro suffrage upon the South at the point of the bayonet, believing that the only way to insure the future welfare of the Negro was to safeguard it by giving him the ballot. Under the protection of these military governments, the Negroes and certain more or less fortunate whites gained political control. The southern white men, weary and disgusted because of the outcome of their attempts at secession, maintained an attitude of sullenness and indifference toward the new regime and accordingly offered at first very little opposition to the Negro control of politics. The Negroes, upon their securing the right of suffrage, however, turned at once to their former masters 1 This article was written under the direction of Dr. C. G. Woodson, under whom the writer prosecuted various courses in history during the year 19191920 at Howard University. The writer is indebted to him for valuable suggestions and many important facts which Dr. Woodson incorporated into the dissertation before publishing it. The writer was aided too by suggestions and facts obtained from Mr. W. T. Andrews, the editor of the Baltimore Herald, Professor Kelly Miller, and Mr. A. Phillips Randolph, of New York City. 2 for political leadership, but the majority of these southern gentlemen refused to "lower their dignity" by political association with the Negroes. The few southern gentlemen who did affiliate with the Negroes were dubbed "scalawags" by their former friends and cast out of southern society. The Negroes were then forced, because of the lack of cooperation on the part of the southern whites, to accept the leadership of certain northern men who came South for the sole purpose of personal gain and exploitation. These men were in some cases of an extremely low order and were in a large measure responsible for the corruption of Reconstruction days. They were contemptuously called "carpetbaggers" by the southern whites because they were so poor that they could carry all of their possessions in a carpet bag. Some of these white men were conscientious, however, and served these States honorably. Most Negroes, therefore, were under the leadership of these three elements: southern men who were regarded by their neighbors as men of the lowest possible order, unscrupulous adventurers from the North, and some intelligent members of their own race like B. K. Bruce, John R. Lynch, R. B. Elliot, and John M. Langston. This ill-assorted group of politicians reconstructed the Southern States. The wisdom of this policy has been widely questioned. From the point of view of most white men studying Reconstruction history this effort to make the Negro a factor in politics was a failure, the elimination of the Negro from politics was just, and the rise of the Negro to political power even today is viewed with alarm. The opinions of the biased historians in this field will be interesting. Several writers refer to the Negro carpet bag movement as an effort to found commonwealths upon the votes of an ignorant Negro electorate, as working an injustice both to the whites and the blacks in that it made the South solidly democratic. J. G. de R. Hamilton, exaggerating the actual 2 The Journal of Negro History, Vol. V, pp. 110-111. 8 Eckenrode, Political History of Virginia during Reconstruction, pp. 127, 128, and Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 400. |