of the blacks in the States to be
reconstructed was an absolute necessity.

The first election held in Mississippi under the Reconstruction Acts
took place in 1867, when delegates to a Constitutional Convention were
elected to frame a new Constitution. The Democrats decided to adopt what
they declared to be a policy of "Masterly Inactivity," that is, to
refrain from taking any part in the election and to allow it to go by
default. The result was that the Republicans had a large majority of the
delegates, only a few counties having elected Democratic delegates. The
only reason that there were any Democrats in the Convention at all was
that the party was not unanimous in the adoption of the policy of
"Masterly Inactivity," and consequently did not adhere to it. The
Democrats in a few counties in the State rejected the advice and
repudiated the action of the State Convention of their party on this
point. The result was that a few very able men were elected to the
convention as Democrats,--such men, for instance, as John W.C. Watson,
and William M. Compton, of Marshall County, and William L. Hemingway, of
Carroll, who was elected State Treasurer by the Democrats in 1875, and
to whom a more extended reference will be made in a subsequent chapter.

The result of the election made it clear that if the Democratic
organization in the State had adopted the course that was pursued by
the members of that party in the counties by which the action of their
State Convention was repudiated, the Democrats would have had at least a
large and influential minority of the delegates, which would have
resulted in the framing of a constitution that would have been much more
acceptable to the members of that party than the one that was finally
agreed upon by the majority of the members of that body. But the
Democratic party in the State was governed and controlled by the radical
element of that organization,--an element which took the position that
no respectable white Democrat could afford to participate in an election
in which colored men were allowed to vote. To do so, they held, would
not only be humiliating to the pride of the white men, but the
contamination would be unwise if not dangerous. Besides, they were firm
in the belief and honest in the conviction that the country would
ultimately repudiate the Congressional Plan of Reconstruction, and that
in the mean time it would be both safe and wise for them to give
expression to their ob