Jim Crow - Born and Bred in HoCo

The flames of racial discrimination after the Civil War were fanned quite well here in HoCo. Jim Crow, a persona of a popular minstrel show performer, started to become popular in the 1830s as a derogatory expression for people of color.

Born and raised in HoCo, Arthur Pue Gorman served as U.S. Senator for Maryland from 1881 to 1899, and again from 1903 to 1906, a total of twenty-two years. Gorman’s father, Peter, a contractor for the B&O constructing their Washington Branch line, owned two slaves (60 and 17 years old) and his mother, Elizabeth A. Brown (maiden name), owned 14 slaves aged between 2 and 24 years old.[i] Since Gorman as a 9-year-old lived with his parents it is natural he would have been supported and raised by these enslaved people on their plantation. But this is not what distinguished his association with oppression.

Through his father’s political connection Gorman became a shrewd and formidable politician and served as a US Senator from 1881 to 1889 and again from 1903 until his death in 1906.  After the 15th amendment was ratified in 1870 the Black vote was mostly against Gorman’s Democratic political party and in favor of the party of Lincoln.  As the Black vote grew there was concern that they would tip the balance of elections to the Republicans.  Gorman lost the vote in 1889 and was desperate to return to the Senate.

A.P. Gorman knew in 1901 that any proposed amendment to Maryland’s constitution would be legally challenged if it singled out disenfranchisement of just Black voters. So he supported the “Poe Amendment” which had literacy tests that would disqualify many more Blacks than Whites as voters.

We found nothing written about his views on race before he threw his support behind the Poe Amendment. In desiring a return to the US Senate he devised a plan that would disenfranchise all illiterate voters that was passed by the Maryland Legislature in 1901. The new Maryland election law would not allow party emblems or images on the ballots and would provide no assistance to the voters. Mr. Michael Walsh of Carroll County voted for the bill, explaining that:

I believe, sir, that white men should govern in this state…I believe the presence of 55,000 negro voters in this State, 26,600 of whom are illiterate and ignorant, is a menace to the progress and well-being of this State, and a dangerous condition which much be met at some time, and the sooner the better.

 Gorman narrowly won reelection in 1901 and by the time he took office in 1903 (there was over a year delay in those days) he worked on a broader disenfranchisement of the illiterate voter through an amendment to the Maryland constitution. It is his public political record on just this issue, the Poe Amendment to the Maryland Constitution, and his own words in the early 1900s and his support for the disenfranchisement of the Black voter, the puts him a negative light. Senator Gorman’s views are noted in these three quotes in 1903:

I said then, as I say now, that this country was made by the white men, that the Anglo-Saxons made its laws and its Constitution, that they conquered first the Indians and then the English, and that no other race of men shall ever have possession of this State or this county.

[N]o greater crime against good government, nor greater outrage against the white women of our land has ever been perpetrated than the enfranchisement by constitutional amendment of the negro.

From the day a cargo of Africans was landed and sold as slaves until this hour the burden of the white men of this county had been greater than that borne by any people known to history…The Anglo-Saxon has never and will never tolerate the social equality or the political domination of the negro race.

In a speech at Ellicott City in October 1905 to support the Poe Suffrage Amendment to disenfranchise the Black voter, Gorman said:

Experience has shown that in States where it [the understanding clause] is in force there is not an intelligent white man, naturalized or native, who has not passed the examination without the slightest trouble, and there is not one negro in twenty of the field class that can have an idea of what the Constitution is if you read it to him three times.

 Gorman supported another life-long Howard Countian, Edwin Warfield, for governor in 1902. In his acceptance speech for Governor in 1903, Warfield said,

Therefore I take my stand firmly upon that plank in the platform of our party which declares that the ‘political destinies of Maryland should be shaped and controlled by the white people of the State.’ And I appeal to all citizens, irrespective of party, who love and honor the State, to lend their earnest and active support in this contest for the supremacy of the white race, for the cause of civilization and good government.

Warfield did not like the literacy test for White voters in the Poe Amendment. Warfield preferred the Straus Amendment which focused only on disenfranchising Black voters. Neither amendment would become law. Governor Warfield, who has a major road named after him in downtown Columbia, later said:

The people of Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore counties, where the ignorant negro vote is so large as to threaten white supremacy and good government… I declared in favor of eliminating the ignorant and thriftless negro voter In Maryland, and upon that declaration I was elected.

While governor, Warfield was able to enact a Jim Crow Car law in 1904 “to provide separate cars or coaches for white and colored passengers, without discrimination in the quality or convenience or accommodation in such cars or coaches.”[viii] It is not surprising that Warfield had contempt for the “thriftless negro” as he was a Lost Cause sympathizer being raised by slaves in a southern sympathizing family, especially after having two brothers fight as confederates in the civil war with one suffering death as a prisoner of war.

The son of enslavers, Warfield was likely too young to legally to own property, but he greatly benefited from the servitude of those enslaved that met his every need until the end of slavery when he was just over 16 years old. He knew how to “boss the job”. Even in later years, those formerly enslaved still referred to him as “Massa Edwin” demonstrating his lifelong status in their eyes. Then again, everyone knew who the boss was.  Warfield felt that "The real slaves were the master and mistress, who were charged with the entire responsibility and care, while the servants had all their wants provided for.”[ix] 

HoCo born and raised politicians were some of the most pro-Jim Crow people around. This is what is meant by systemic oppression – it comes from the people in power.

Source:

[i] 1850. The National Archive in Washington DC; Washington, DC; NARA Microform Publication: M432; Title: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29.

[ii] “New Election Law,” Baltimore Sun, March 21, 1901.

[iii] “Gorman Speaks – Talks on Negro Issue,” Baltimore Sun, Oct. 25, 1903.

[iv] “New Election Law,” Baltimore Sun, March 21, 1901.

[v] “Gorman Hits Out,” Baltimore Sun, Oct 27, 1905.

[vi] “Mr. Warfield’s Speech of Acceptance at Mt. Airy,” Aegis & Intelligencer (Bel Air, Md), Oct.2, 1903

[vii] “Warfield Favors The Amendment”, Democratic Advocate (Westminster, Md), Sept. 17, 1909

[viii] “In Effect July First: On and After July First Colored People Must Ride Jim Crow Cars”, Baltimore Afro American Ledger, June 25, 1904,

[ix] “Tells of Slave Life - former Governor Warfield on Old Plantation Days”, Baltimore Sun, April 13, 1912;

“Edwin Warfield: Farmer and Financier,” Baltimore Sun, Jan. 22, 1911.