The Poe Amendment's Defeat: Maryland Voters Reject the Negro Disfrancisement Movement, 1903-1905

Abstract

The Poe amendment resulted from the increase of anti-Negro feeling in the very early 1900's and dominated Maryland politics from 1903 to 1905. Through this amendment, the Democratic party under Senator Arthur P. Gorman would have disfranchised Maryland's Negroes. The racist movements of the South and anti-Negro sentiments of a segment of the Baltimore press affected Democratic thinking. The Democrats scored an overwhelming victory in the 1903 state election and pushed the amendment through the 1904 meeting of the Legislature. The Legislature sent the measure to the people as a referendum in the November 1905 election. If passed, it would have placed much power in the hands of election officials. In 1904, however, resistance to the proposal emerged, first by Governor Edwin Warfield and later by other leading Democrats. In addition, the newspapers lessened their racist tone. The amendment threatened the Republican party; its members strongly fought it. They received help at this critical point from Secretary of the Navy, Charles J. Bonaparte, who led and solidified the party. In particular, the Bonaparte-led Republicans utilized the foreign community and apprehensive third parties. They also received negative help from the Baltimore Democratic organization under I. Freeman Rasin which gave the amendment little support. Further, the election eve saw a number of leading Democrats such as Senator Isidor Rayner squabbling publicly over the amendment. Thus, the voters did not trust Gorman and his organization, did not fear the threat of Negro domination, and thoroughly defeated the amendment throughout most of the state.