POLITICAL CONDITION. After the close of the Civil War, the negroes, under the leadership of a certain class of whites, practically controlled the government of many of the Southern States. (See RECONSTRUCTION.) Their ignorance and lack of political training rendered them ineapa ble of exercising political power wisely, and they were gradually excluded from power by the whites. at first by wholly illegal means, later by State laws and constitutional amendments. In 1890 the Constitution of Mississippi was amend ed so as to exclude from the suffrage any person unable to read any section of the Constitution, or understand it when read to him and give a rea sonable interpretation of it. Payment of a poll tax was also required. The effect of this amend ment was the exclusion of the greater part of the negro vote. In 1895 South Carolina amended its Constitution so as to exclude the votes of those unable to read or write any section of the Con stitution, or to show that he owned and paid taxes on property assessed at $300 or more. In 1898 Louisiana passed a similar amendment. with the addition of the so-called 'grandfather clause,' excusing from the limitations of the amendment all descendants of nien who voted previous to the war, thus admitting to the enIl•rage illiterate, propertyless whites. North Carolina took simi lar action ill 1900, though no property qualifica tion was required. in 1901 constitutional amendments were adopted in Virginia and ..1.1a bama practically disfranchising the negro.
For the solution of the various 'negro prob lems,' social, economic, and political, several plans have been brought to puldie attention. Repatriation of the negro in Africa was widely advocated. especially in the first two decades
after the Civil War; but the plan has been gener ally abandoned as impracticable, since the negro manifests no desire to return to Africa, and could not he forced to emigrate against his will. Front a moral point of view, the plan has been eondemned out the ground that it would mean a reversion to barbarism of the greater part of the race. Eeonomicall• its effects would be grave, since the Southern States must for a long time rely upon the negro for unskilled labor.
The plan which finds greatest favor at present is the industrial education of the the en of laml-owttership by those who arc now tenants. and the extension of ed ucation. see NEtato EtitTATtox.) The phut produced valuable results. Gradu ates of institution, like and Hampton Institute have proved that under the leadership of member, of their own race are eapable of rapid improvement, economieally and morally. See .NEc,fto; NEGRO EDUCATION ; SLAVERY.
pity. Bruce, The Plantatitnt Vigro as a Entmaa (New York. ISSN : The Ncgro in (hr Distriet of Columbia (P,altiniore, ; I:au/tett. xtofistics of the Ncgrot.s in the Unitcd Staks (Baltimore. 1894) ; Du Bois, The Phihvielphia Negro (Philadelphia, id., Th, 1/rOl'S 111 Black Belt (Washington, 1S99) : The Future of the mtriean Negro 1 Bostati, 1599) id.. Up From $1q i• cry (NOW York, 191)1) ; Montgomery Conference Pro 1900) ; The in .t Inc.,i and .111n. rien New York, 1902). See also referenees under NEGRO; NEGRO EDUCA TION.