They were barbers, field hands, hack drivers, and servants.
A Negro chaplain was elected who invoked divine blessings on "unioners and cusses on rebels." It was a sign of the new era when the convention specially invited the "ladies of colored members" to seats in the gallery.
The work of the conventions was for the most part cut and dried, the abler members having reached a general agreement before they met.

The constitutions, mosaics of those of other states, were noteworthy only for the provisions made to keep the whites out of power and to regulate the relations of the races in social matters.

The Texas constitution alone contained no proscriptive clauses beyond those required by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The most thoroughgoing proscription of Confederates was found in the constitutions of Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia; and in these states the voter must also purge himself of guilt by agreeing to accept the "civil and political equality of all men" or by supporting reconstruction.

Only in South Carolina and Louisiana were race lines abolished by law.
The legislative work of the conventions was more interesting than the constitution making.