This you can do with perfect safety, and you would thus place Southern States in reference to free persons of color upon the same basis with the free states....

And as a consequence the radicals, who are wild upon Negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern states from renewing their relations to the Union by not accepting their senators and representatives." In deciding upon a basis of representation, it was clear that the majority of delegates desired to lessen the influence of the Black Belt and place the control of the government with the "up country." In the Alabama convention Robert M.Patton, then a delegate and later governor, frankly avowed this object, and in South Carolina, Governor Perry urged the convention to give no consideration to Negro suffrage, "because this is a white man's government," and if the Negroes should vote they would be controlled by a few whites.

A kindly disposition toward the Negroes was general except on the part of extreme Unionists, who opposed any favors to the race.

"This is a white man's country" was a doctrine to which all the conventions subscribed.
The conventions held brief sessions, completed their work, and adjourned, after directing that elections be held for state and local officers and for members of Congress.

Before December the appointed local officials had been succeeded by elected officers; members of Congress were on their way to Washington; the state legislatures were assembling or already in session; and the elected governors were ready to take office.