Quote#Politics & Power
In my state there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting…
Quote byBenjamin Tillman · 1847–1918
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech to the United States Senate (23 March 1900)..
English (original)
In my state there were 135,000 negro voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters.... Now, I want to ask you, with a free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you going to do it? You had set us an impossible task.
— Benjamin Tillman
More from Benjamin Tillman
We made up our minds that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution were themselves null and void.
We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters …
How did we recover our liberty? By fraud and violence. We tried to overcome the thirty thousand majority by honest methods, which was a mathematical impossibility. After we had borne these indignities for eight years life became worthless …
The whites have absolute control of the State government, and we intend at any and all hazards to retain it. The intelligent exercise of the right of suffrage ... is as yet beyond the capacity of the vast majority of colored men. We deny, …
the triumph of democracy and white supremacy over mongrelism and anarchy, of civilization over barbarism, has been most complete.
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