It will be utterly impossible to give dates after a lapse of nearly fifty years, especially with reference to the terms the legislators served, unless I had access to the records. I was a boy when our family returned to South Carolina in 1870, two years after the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention. At that period I was not especially interested in the trend of affairs. I was thinking more of the splendid opportunities I had left behind in Canada.
I think it very important that all of the data possible should be collected pertaining to the Constitutional Convening as I regard it the most important Convention ever held in which colored men participated. I was very fortunate in finding a copy of the Proceedings of the Convention in the Public Library in this city. I have given only such names as I could positively identify as colored. No doubt some names have been omitted but not of any who took an active or important part in political affairs.
F. B. Perry, of Greenville, S.C., was appointed Provisional Governor of South Carolina by President Johnson in 1865.
Pursuant to a call for a convention of the people issued by Governor Perry in obedience to the proclamation of President Johnson for the purpose of organizing a State Government, the Convention assembled at Columbia, S.C., September 13, 1865.
To show the intense bitter feeling of Governor Perry the following is from his proclamation:
"It is a source of congratulation to know that the colored troops, whose atrocious conduct has disgraced the service and filled the public mind with the most horrible apprehensions, have been withdrawn from the interior of the State, and are to be placed in garrisons on the coast where they can do no further mischief. In all of my personal interviews with the President and in all of my dispatches to him I urged this course most earnestly."
A Constitution was adopted by the Convention without being submitted to the people for ratification.
The Constitution provided that only free white men were eligible for membership in the Senate and House of Representatives; only free white men were entitled to vote and that the appointment of members of the House of Representatives among the several election districts of the State should be in accordance with the number of white inhabitants in each.