ary of State, and State
Superintendent of Education. Of the two United States Senators and the
seven members of the lower house of Congress not more than one colored
man occupied a seat in each house at the same time. Of the thirty-five
members of the State Senate, and of the one hundred and fifteen members
of the House,--which composed the total membership of the State
Legislature prior to 1874,--there were never more than about seven
colored men in the Senate and forty in the lower house. Of the
ninety-seven members that composed the Constitutional Convention of 1868
but seventeen were colored men. The composition of the lower house of
the State Legislature that was elected in 1871 was as follows:

Total membership, one hundred and fifteen. Republicans, sixty-six;
Democrats, forty-nine. Colored members, thirty-eight. White members,
seventy-seven. White majority, thirty-nine.

Of the sixty-six Republicans thirty-eight were colored and twenty-eight,
white. There was a slight increase in the colored membership as a result
of the election of 1873, but the colored men never at any time had
control of the State Government nor of any branch or department thereof,
nor even that of any county or municipality. Out of seventy-two counties
in the State at that time, electing on an average twenty-eight officers
to a county, it is safe to assert that not over five out of one hundred
of such officers were colored men. The State; district, county, and
municipal governments were not only in control of white men, but white
men who were to the manor born, or who were known as old citizens of the
State--those who had lived in the State many years before the War of the
Rebellion. There was, therefore, never a time when that class of white
men known as Carpet-baggers had absolute control of the State
Government, or that of any district, county or municipality, or any
branch or department thereof. There was never, therefore, any ground for
the alleged apprehension of negro domination as a result of a free,
fair, and honest election in any one of the Southern or Reconstructed
States.

And this brings us to a consideration of the question, What is meant by
"Negro Domination?" The answer that the average reader would give to
that question would be that it means the actual, physical domination of
the blacks over the whites. But, according to a high Democratic
authority, that would be an incorrect answer. The definition given by
that authorit