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 quite ignorant, though a few leaders of
ability did appear among them. In Alabama, for example, only two Negro members
could write, though half had been taught to sign their names. They were
barbers, field hands, hack drivers, and servants. A Negro chaplain was elected
who invoked divine blessings on "unioners and cusses on rebels." It was a sign
of the new era when the convention specially invited the "ladies of colored
members" to seats in the gallery.

The work of the conventions was for the most part cut and dried, the abler
members having reached a general agreement before they met. The constitutions,
mosaics of those of other states, were noteworthy only for the provisions made
to keep the whites out of power and to regulate the relations of the races in
social matters. The Texas constitution alone contained no proscriptive clauses
beyond those required by the Fourteenth Amendment. The most thoroughgoing
proscription of Confederates was found in the constitutions of Mississippi,
Alabama, and Virginia; and in these states the voter must also purge himself