“We met here to establish the supremacy of the white race,” remarked Judiciary Committee chairman Thomas Semmes during his closing remarks. “Our mission was, in the first place, to establish the supremacy of the white race in this State to the extent to which it could be legally and constitutionally done, and what has our ordinance on suffrage, the constitutional means by which we propose to maintain that ascendency, done? We have established throughout the State white manhood suffrage.”12
