>>17764711 (OP)
The 1868 Republican Platform called only for Black votes in the South!
"They were of the same opinion still as to the necessity of negro votes to sustain themselves against the subsiding political tide, which they saw had already set in, and they yielded with sullen and bad grace to the second plank in the platform of their party, adopted in the Republican National Convention at Chicago, on May 21st, 1868,°°* which was as follows:
“2. The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude and of justice and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.”
This plank, it was thought, would placate everybody in the party. Those who feared negro suffrage for themselves were assured, in the most solemn manner, that it should never be forced upon them, but that “the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.” Away, then, with the campaign bugaboo of negro suffrage for the North, which had been raised up by the Democrats, merely to divide and distract the Republican party! Was there not here in this National platform of that party such a distinct and unequivocal declaration — amounting even to a pledge — against it, as should satisfy any reasonable man?"
-Braxton (1903)
