By 1880 attempts of black people to leave the South had become alarming enough for the U.S. Senate to investigate and subsequently publish “The Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States.” The Democrats controlled the Senate and named three of the committee’s five members; one, Zebulon Vance, was an ex-Confederate. In questioning black witnesses, some of whom testified at the risk of their lives, the Democrats hectored, ridiculed, and condescended.
