as the
former were willing to do. He wanted this a white man's
government, and wanted them to do the legislating as they had the
intelligence and wealth; but he wanted the power to protect
himself against unfriendly legislation. Justice should be like
the Egyptian statue, blind and recognizing no color."

Concerning intermarriage between whites and Negroes, Mr. Bradley, a
delegate to the convention, having offered to insert in the
constitution, a clause "forbidding matrimony between a white person
and a person of African descent," on which point nearly all of the
members spoke pro and con in that and the following days, Mr. Gray
said:

"It was seldom such outrages were committed at the North, where
there are no constitutional provisions of the kind proposed. He
saw no necessity of inserting any in the present constitution. As
for his people, their condition now would not permit any such
marriages. If it was proposed to insert a provision of the kind,
he would move to amend by making it an offence punishable with
death for a white man to cohabit with a Negro woman." At another
time he observed on the same subject, that "there was no danger
of intermarriage, as the greatest minds had pronounced it
abhorrent to nature. The provision would not cover the case, as
the laws must subsequently define who is a Negro; and he referred
to the law of North Carolina, declaring persons Negroes who have
only one-sixteenth of Negro blood. White men had created the
difficulty, and it would not be impossible to draw the line which
the gentleman desired established."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Annual Cyclopedia, 1868, pp. 34-35.

Mr. Monroe N. Work, who compiled the records of the Negro in politics
during the Reconstruction period, has received the following
interesting letters containing some valuable facts:

1425 MCCULLOH ST., BALTIMORE, MD., Feb. 9, 1920.

_My dear Mr. Work_:

Referring to the "Journal of Negro History" for Jan., 1920, in
the letter of the State Librarian of Virginia, page 119, occur
these words: "_For the 1881-2 session the almanac has no list of
members._"

It so happens that the writer was present, and was an employee of
that particular session of the Virginia Legislature, and
therefore takes pleasure in supplying the necessary information.

The spe