Earlier this month I wrote about the effort in Alabama to delete racist language in its constitution put in during the decades after Reconstruction in order to roll back Reconstruction Era cvil rights gains for African Americans. I linked to a speech by the Chairman of the fateful 1901 Alabama Constitutional Convention explaining the rationale for the new constitution. Chairman John Knox famously announced that “The new Constitution eliminates the ignorant Negro vote and places the control of our government where God Almighty intended it should be — with the Anglo-Saxon race.”
I never read the whole speech until this month and I want to look at how Knox used the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction to justify the new constitution.
According to Knox, the pre-Civil War United States was governed by two political parties that ensured confidence because they were both exclusively controlled by white people. He said:
The Civil War disrupted what Knox calls “White Supremacy” and a multiracial party, the Republican Party of Lincoln and Grant, created a new political order. Knox writes:
Knox then describes a meeting of African Americans who opposed the new 1901 constitution:
He next denounced the invitation extended by Teddy Roosevelt to meet with Booker T. Washington at the White House. Even though Booker T. Washington was a conciliationist who accommodated himself to Jim Crow, any socialization by the president with an African Americans threatened White Supremacy. Knox said:
Knox warned that placing Black and White on an equal social plain would lead to white girls falling in love with Black men. Knox forecast that this would result in mixed-race children. Without racial “purity” American civilization would fall.
Knox concludes by comparing the African American voter in Alabama to the assassin of President McKinley:
The history of the Civil War and Reconstruction was used again and again in the South by white leaders to argue for the stealing of the vote from African Americans in order to rest all governmental power in the hands of whites.
Where can one obtain a full copy of Knox’s address? Thank you—
Hi,
Here is a link to the address:
https://digital.archives.alabama.gov/digital/collection/voices/id/8516
So Mr. Young, Am I to understand that, according to Mr. Knox, the right way of governing was interrupted by the Civil War and was changed by the dastardly deeds of that party of Lincoln, the Republican Party who dared to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment to the US Constitution with little to no support or help of the Democratic Party of which Mr. Knox was a member of? So… the Democrats are the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation, not the Republican Party? The party of Wallace, Maddox, Johnston, Bilbo and Talmadge to name a few. All white and all democrat. Now there is Strom Thurmond and Barry Goldwater who, as Republicans, did not support the Civil Rights Act. Then of course there is Robert Byrd and Lyndon Johnson. They throw a monkey wrench into the mix because what they said publicly wasnt what they believed or said privately. When can we see true fact based journalism instead of gerrymandered journalism we have seen since the 1960’s?
I don’t do journalism. I do history. However, as the son of an old-time Republican, I have been sorry to see the Grand Old Party turn away from its historic advocacy of full-citizenship protections regardless of color and the protection of the voting rights of people of color.
Your grasp of history is lacking. Please learn about the Dixiecrats and their metamorphosis into the Republican Party. Yes, Lincoln was a Republican, but I seriously doubt he would be one today. Mr. Young’s response to you is perfect.