Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1868-04-30

Rule, and UNMITIaATED NEGRO RULE.
black attorney for the commonwealth will
send up his witnesses to mixed grand jury,
who will send back their indictments to mix
ed petit jury. A black sheriff or his black
deputy, will take the white and black jury in
charge, to eat at a common table and sleep in
| the same chamber. A black treasurer will have
the custody Of the taxes levied in the county
A black superintendent of the POOR (?) will
dole out the charities of the public to the white
paupers in the county poor house. A black
trustee will visit and make laws for the village
school, BLACK supervisors will fix the amount
of the county levy, which will be assessed by
plack assessor, and gathered in by a black
collector. A black commissioner will lay off
the public roads. A black magistrate will
dispense justice; black constablewill preserve
order; a black clerk will write the records
Of the township
! The Governor and his aids will be black after
the first term. The Lieut.. Governor will be
black. The Secretary of the Commonwealth
will be black. The Board of Public Works
will be black. The Legislature will be black
we shall have black representatives in Congress-
The visitors in the University viii be black
the State proxies will be black.
BASIS OF REPRESENTATION AND APPoRTIoNMENT
In fur heranee Of their plan OF entrenching
themselves iii power in every possible manner,
! the negroes deemed it worth while to take even
another precaution. AS negroes only Tor in
corners from the North) are eligible to the
Legislature, it might have appeared unneces~
sary 10 tamper with the apportionment Of reps
resentation for the Legislature. But as the
whites Excluding the disfranchi3ed CLASSY are
allowed to vote, it might have resulted that
the whites might have sent majority of ne
groes to the Legislature under white influence.
For the whites excluding the disfranchised)
have a majority in the State Of some IS, 900
votes. Accordingly the article in the Consti-
tuition entitled Basis of Representation and
superintendent" the State has been gerryman-
dersd and the blacks will have q majority of
Il ON joint ballot in the two Houses Of the
General Assembly. The MAJ ority of tl.a COM
mittee on this subject were Radicals, and they
brought in report which gave their party
about nine on joint ballot in the Legislature.
This was partly effected by adopting the regis
tra.ion Of 1867 as the basis Of representation
and apporticnment. The committee declined
| to adopt as this basis the census returns Of
1860, or to correct the registration lists by
these census returns; although it was well
known that large number Of white persons
had neglected to register at the late registras
| ton.
But the party leaders in the Convention were
not satisfied with the majority thus secured
They sanctioned the general principles on
which the report was based, which were las
regards The House Of Delegates) these: That
as far as practicable each county should have
separate delegate; that there should be one
DELEGATE for each 800 registered voters '.and
where the fraction over, IL a county, exceeds
800 voters, to give another delegate; and TO
! every county i'll which the number Of voters
was between 9G0 and 1900, delegate each"
The report, in the main, wss adopted by the
convention. Had it been adopted without
modification, the negroes would have had
majority of about six in the House of Delegates
The convention, however, desired a more de-
cided preponderance, and they increased their
majority In the House Of Delegates by the fol-
lowing fragrant outrage, without any prece-
dent in all our past history. Chesterfield
county had 1889 registered voters and waa,
under the rule adopted, entitled to two dele
gates; Powhatan, adjourning, had 1 1924 vo-
ters, and was entitled to one delegate. The
report accordingly gave two delegates to Ches-
terheld and one to PoWhatan. Bat Chesterfield
was doubtful county, while the black voters
heavily preponderated in Powhatan. The con-
vention accordingly threw tie two counties to-
gether and gave them three delegates, thus Sc
curing certainly three negro delegates. Bat
they wanted still more. Accordingly, they
then threw Richmond city and Henrico county
together, ON the motion of Judge Underwood.
Richmond city had IL 500 registered voters,
and the report assigned it six delegates. Hen
rico had 3,l0S voters, and was assigned two
delegates. 1t was concluded from the result Of
the registration had last month in Richmond
that the whites could carry this city. But
there was negro majority of $50 in Henrico.
! The convention therefore again wantonly de-
parted from the report and all precedent,
threw Richmond city and Henrico together
and gave them, thus united, eight delegates.
Thus, as is calculated, change of sixteen
votes is effected in the House of Delegates
In the same manner, Richmond city, which by
itself would be entitled to two senators, with
fraction to spare, is thrown with Henrico,
and the two combined elect three (black) SEN
ators. This last, however, had been the work
Of the committee.
! TAXATION.
The only part in the administration of the
government which has been almost exclusively
assigned to the whites is the payment of the
taxes. The convention repeatedly avowed
that 1t was their purpose to lay the burden
of taxation on property. In conformity with
this idea, naturally pleasing to the negroes,
the constitution prohibits the Legislature from
imposing poll tax exceeding one dollar on
each head, and prohibits any county poll tax
| exceeding nIty cents ana requires that the
whole Of the State poll tax shall be applied to
the SUP ,ort Of the common schools to be es-
| tabhshed
The Conservative members made strenu-
Gus effort to make We amount of the poll tax
always dependent on tie amount of the prop
crty tax, SO that they Should rise snd fall to-
gether, A proposition was otfered that the
poll tax should be equal 10 tbs fax on i've
hundred dollars Of property; it was votad
down. proposition was then offered to make
the poll tax equal to the tax on the hundred
dollars of property; this was also rejected.
Nineteen twentieths IF the taxes raised will
be derived from the property tax, which of
course, will fall almost exclusively on the
whites; and by returns in the Auditors Office
it appedrs that last year only one negro in
four paid the poll tax required of him, which
was sixty cents. So that the poll tax will al
SO fall chiefly on the whites. The entire poll
tax. State and county, paid by the negroes,
viii be about $4,000. A proposition was of
fered in the convention that the poll tax paid
by the whites should be appropriated to the
education of white children, and that paid by
the blacks appropriated for the benefit of their
children 1t was rejected by strict party
vote.
The novelty of investing the non-taxpayers
with the power to impose all the taxes assumes