CALIFORNIA RELUCTANTLY IMPLEMENTS THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT: WHITE CALIFORNIANS RESPOND TO BLACK SUFFRAGE, March - June, 1870 Ralph E. Shaffer Professor Emeritus, History Cal Poly Pomona
[email protected] Copyright 2020 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I RATIFICATION CELEBRATIONS: HAILING THE "SECOND EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION" AMID THE FEAR OF SOCIAL EQUALITY II DEMOCRATS OBSTRUCT REGISTRATION, APRIL- JUNE, 1870 III AT LAST, THE BALLOT EPILOGUE P a g e | 1 INTRODUCTION Ralph E. Shaffer and Sheila M. Skjeie With adoption of the state constitution in 1849 the right of suffrage in California was limited to adult, white, male citizens. Denied the ballot, African Americans in the state were powerless to prevent legislative passage of discriminatory laws such as restrictions on their right to testify in civil and criminal cases involving whites. Consequently blacks saw their enfranchisement as a way to guarantee equal treatment under the law. But moving cautiously, California’s blacks first worked to obtain testimony rights. Democrats dominated the legislature during the ten years before the Civil War, and they persistently rebuffed these efforts.1 Despite the legislature’s attitude, African Americans continued to fight, through conventions, newspapers, and petitions to the legislature, for equality regarding testimony in court. Their struggle ended successfully, in the midst of a Civil War that brought to power, both nationally and in California, a Republican Party that was more favorably inclined to an extension of black civil rights. In 1863, during Republican Governor Leland Stanford’s term in office, the ban on black testimony in civil and criminal cases was repealed. Blacks avoided making common cause with the Chinese on this issue, however, and urged that they, being Christians and knowledgeable about oaths, should be able to testify, but not the Chinese or Native Americans.