investigate the Confederate record of each
applicant. This authority was invoked to carry the disfranchisement of
the whites far beyond the intention of the law in an attempt to destroy
the leadership of the whites and to register enough Negroes to outvote
them at the polls. For this purpose the registration was continued until
October 1, 1867, and an active campaign of education and organization
carried on.

At the close of the registration, 703,000 black voters were on the rolls
and 627,000 whites. In Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and
Mississippi there were black majorities, and in the other States the
blacks and the radical whites together formed majorities. The white
minorities included several thousand who had been rejected by the
registrars but restored by the military commanders. Though large
numbers of blacks were dropped from the revised rolls as fraudulently
registered, the registration statistics, nevertheless, bore clear
witness to the political purpose of those who compiled them.

Next followed a vote on the question of holding a state convention
and the election of delegates to such a convention if held--a double
election. The whites, who had been harassed in the registration and who
feared race conflicts at the elections, considered whether they ought
not to abstain from voting. By staying away from the polls, they might
bring the vote cast in each State below a majority and thus defeat the
proposed conventions for, unless a majority of the registered voters
actually cast ballots either for or against a convention, no convention
could be held. Nowhere, however, was this plan of not voting fully
carried out, for, though most whites abstained, enough of them voted
(against the conventions, of course) to make the necessary majority in
each State. The effect of the abstention policy upon the personnel of
the conventions was unfortunate. In every convention there was a radical
majority with a conservative and all but negligible minority. In South
Carolina and Louisiana, there were Negro majorities. In every State
except North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, the Negroes and the
carpetbaggers together were in the majority over native whites.

The conservative whites were of fair ability; the carpetbaggers and
scalawags produced in each convention a few able leaders, but most
of them were conscienceless political soldiers of fortune; the Negro
members were inexperienced, and most of them were qui