Manuscript/Mixed Material Justin S. Morrill Papers: Petition of Colored Citizens of South Carolina, praying that equal rights before the law, and the elective franchise may be granted to them, [1865]

Title

• Justin S. Morrill Papers: Petition of Colored Citizens of South Carolina, praying that equal rights before the law, and the elective franchise may be granted to them, [1865]

Names

• Justin S. Morrill

Created / Published

• 1865

Headings

• -  Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)
• -  Howard, Jacob Merritt, 1805-1871
• -  African Americans--History--1863-1877
• -  African Americans--South Carolina--History--19th century
• -  African Americans--South Carolina--Politics and government--19th century
• -  Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--South Carolina
• -  South Carolina--History--1865-
• -  South Carolina--Race relations
• -  United States--Politics and government--1865-1900
• -  Petitions--United States--History--19th century
• -  South Carolina--Politics and government--1865-1950
• -  United States--Race relations--History--19th century
• -  Manuscripts

Genre

• Manuscripts

Notes

• -  Little is currently known about this petition addressed to the United States Senate and House of Representatives by “colored citizens of South Carolina” in terms of the conditions under which it was created or how it came to be part of the Justin S. Morrill Papers at the Library of Congress. According to The Congressional Globe [39th Congress, 1st session, part 1 (December 21, 1865), pages 107-108; see https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32437011560410?urlappend=;seq=219;ownerid=113502168-223 External ], Senator Jacob Merritt Howard (R-Michigan), introduced the petition in the U.S. Senate on December 21, 1865, with the request that it be referred to the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Representative Justin S. Morrill (R-Vermont) served on this committee, so it is possible the petition came into his possession at that time.
• -  The petition is comprised of an introductory page containing the text addressed to Congress, followed by individual pages of signatures glued end-to-end to form a document that is just over fifty-four-feet in length when fully extended. According to Senator Howard’s remarks in the Senate, the petition contains 3,740 signatures. Some of the names on the petition overlap with those of men who had recently participated in the “State Convention of the Colored People of South Carolina,” which met in Charleston, South Carolina, November 20-25, 1865. However, the text of the petition in the Morrill Papers is not the same as that of the “Memorial to the United States Congress,” adopted by the convention on November 25, 1865. [For comparison, the text of the convention’s memorial is available at the bottom of column 1, page 8, New-York Daily Tribune, November 29, 1865; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1865-11-29/ed-1/seq-8 ]
• -  Consistent with sentiments expressed at the time by other groups of African Americans, the South Carolina petitioners stressed the importance of equal rights before the law for African Americans previously denied full access to the rights of citizenship. They particularly highlighted the necessity of voting rights, as “without this political privilige [sic] we will have no security for our personal rights and no means to secure the blessings of education to our children.” The issues of race, citizenship, and voting rights would be critical ones during the Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War, and continued to be relevant far beyond the end of Reconstruction.

Call Number/Physical Location

• MSS 33555: OV 1

Source Collection

• Justin S. Morrill Papers

Repository

• Manuscript Division

Online Format

• online text
• image

IIIF Presentation Manifest

• Manifest (JSON/LD)