Beacon of Democracy: South Carolina in 1868, Part Two

In the first part of my post about the South Carolina constitution of 1868, I talked about the background, including the massive destruction caused by Sherman’s invasion at the end of the Civil War in 1865, and the two federal wartime experiments involving the freed slaves. I also discussed how Southern-born Andrew Johnson, made (Republican) president by Lincoln’s assassination in Apr. 1865, tried to drastically limit the social revolution unleashed by Union victory. His formula was essentially to re-admit the 11 states which had rebelled as quickly as possible, imposing only temporary loss of political rights on ex-Confederates, and their acceptance of the 13th Amendment (permanent Black emancipation).

Otherwise, he did his utmost to restore the prewar Southern social and political order, letting the ex-Confederates, in South Carolina and elsewhere, write new constitutions and “elect” themselves back into Congress as Democrats (their prewar party). South Carolina had essentially been run by an oligarchy of wealthy white planters for its entire two-century history to this point, and they were overjoyed about what looked like their resumption of power (even though the state had a Black majority!). The oligarchy swiftly passed a Black Code- aimed at ensuring Black farm labor and subservience indefinitely- despite loud protests from the state’s Black population.

But then, very abruptly, the Northern Radical Republicans who controlled Congress, from the end of 1865 into early 1867, stopped Johnson’s Reconstruction in its tracks, and set the post-Civil War social revolution in motion after all, with profound consequences, despite Johnson’s fierce opposition. They took two steps: first, passing a Reconstruction Act, which restored military rule (i.e. the return of Northern soldiers) throughout the former Confederacy. Second, they required that, before any state could be readmitted, and civilian rule and political rights restored, it had to accept the 14th Amendment, which for the first time in our history defined “citizenship”- as a birthright for everyone (then male) who is native-born (Black as well as white!). Predictably, the old white elite in South Carolina was horrified about what this meant for their centuries of supremacy, and refused to accept the 14th. One local historian wrote of this moment: ““During that and the following year it was as though the foundations of the great deep were broken up.”

But this new Congressional Reconstruction suddenly created immense new opportunities for those outside the old power structure: the white working class; those whites who had stayed loyal to the Union during the war; Northern whites who could now come South and invest in the rebuilding of the state; and, most of all, the chance for participatory democracy for free Blacks and hundreds of thousands of ex-slaves. There was even a chance for political rights for women, white and Black!

The opportunity was there because only these marginalized groups would support the 14th Amendment! Leaders drawn from all these groups recognized the magnitude of what was on offer. If they moved swiftly, while the Radicals held Congress and the military was present in the state as muscle, they could write a constitution completely of their own choosing (as long as, of course, they accepted the Amendment). Even more exciting, the delegates themselves could tell that they then (to a large extent) could go on to become the next government (as the next step would be the election of a governor and legislature before readmission). The federal Constitution has always reserved the making of rules about voting to the states (as long as they don’t conflict with federal rules). And so it unfolded- the general in charge of the region (Gen. Canby) announced that there would be a vote in Nov. 1867, open to both white and Black men, about approving a constitutional convention for Feb. 1868. About the same time, Canby sent a clear message to the white community, by removing the entire set (mayor and aldermen, who had refused to take the “ironclad” allegiance oath) of top officials in the state’s largest city, Charleston- replacing them with Black and white Republicans!

Again quite predictably (though foolishly!), most white voters simply didn’t participate in the convention vote. Only just over 2,000 did so- compared to almost 69,000 Black men, voting for the very first time in South Carolina history! Of course they approved of the convention by a wide margin, and promptly chose delegates, mostly Black, from each of what was then called “districts” (soon to be renamed as “counties”). Of all of the ex-Confederate states, only South Carolina’s constitutional delegates would have a Black majority (72 to 48). This was the group that first assembled at the Charleston Club on Feb. 14, 1868- primed for the task of drastically overhauling the state’s political structure. Black delegate Richard Cain, nicknamed “Daddy,” set the tone: “In the Constitution, we do not wish to leave a jot or tittle upon which anything can be built to remind our children of their former state of slavery.”

I will pause here to comment on just how revolutionary this moment was!! Here’s a quick glance around the world for the state of democracy as of 1868. The recent past had certainly seen some big progress, especially in the abolition of (legal) African slavery: for 800,000 in the British Empire in 1834 (though with a long “apprenticeship” afterward); for 200,000 in the French Empire by 1848; for all of Latin America (except Cuba and Brazil) by about 1850; and for 47,000 in the Dutch Empire in the Americas in 1863 (though also with a following decade during which they still had to do plantation labor!). And Czar Alexander II of Russia, an absolute ruler, had emancipated over 23 million of his subjects from serfdom in 1861.

But, it is very important to note, emancipation in all of these cases did not yet mean any access to political power. A single part-Black Member of Parliament had been elected in Britain in 1865, and one in France, from what is now Haiti (though he was later jailed under Napoleon!). But voting was still accessible only only to a minority of the male population in Britain and France (in 1867 Britain did the Reform Act, which allowed men who rented, as well as owned, property, to vote, but real power would remain with the aristocracy and gentry into the 20th century!). As for the U.S., there had as yet been just three Black state legislators: one in Vermont in 1836 (the first state to abolish slavery), and two (but in 1866, and for single one-year terms!) in Massachusetts (also known for its abolitionism). Lonely Peter McLaglen (the British MP, from what is now Guyana) was the only Black legislator, anywhere, still in office at the time of the South Carolina convention, with its Black majority!

Before describing the convention and constitution, here’s a short note about the status of the information about the delegates. The stenographer for the convention did an excellent job of recording the “Proceedings” for its two months (published soon afterward), but the list of delegates given at the start only names the district for each. There’s quite a lot of information about the handful of prominent Black delegates (especially since many went on to serve in Congress) in all of the well-known Reconstruction sources (such as Eric Foner’s landmark book from 1988), and even a few full-length biographies, but information about the majority (even for many of the whites!) has proved to be much more sparse (most paradoxically, rare details, including about delegates’ physical appearance, comes from the profiles done by racist white reporters covering the event!). Then I happened upon Thomas Holt’s wonderful book, “Black over white: Negro political leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction.” Holt did all of the spadework, back in the ‘70s, that I have been trying to do, but more thoroughly and with much more analysis. The problem is that few seem to have read his book (especially in using it at the history textbook level) since it came out in 1977. It’s long out of print!

Collage of Reconstruction South Carolina politicians (c.1876)- Library of Congress

Who were the delegates? What a remarkably varied bunch, in age and background! In age, the Black delegates were strikingly younger on average than the white (70% were under 40, and almost half were in their 20’s!). Not surprisingly, in the wake of the Civil War, a fair number had military experience. Sixteen of the 24 Black ones had served (several as officers!) in the Union’s segregated units with white officers (the U.S. Colored Troops or “USCT”), including several who, in one of the most famous USCT units (the 54th Massachusetts), had survived its valiant and doomed attack on Ft. Wagner outside Charleston in 1863 (featured in the movie “Glory”). One vet had lost an arm in battle, and another a leg. One of the most interesting was Landon (or Loudon) Langley, who came from the miniscule Black community in Vermont; his grandfather had fought in the Revolution, and his parents had sheltered fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. Another important one was Prince Rivers, a native South Carolinian, a former carriage driver as a slave, and a former USCT sergeant; he was distinguished by his looks (a muscular 6-footer) and charisma, which had been put to use recruiting Black troops in the North. The most famous delegate with a military background was Robert Smalls, who as a slave pilot had actually stolen a Confederate gunboat in 1862, sailing it out to the Union fleet! A couple of the white delegates had actually served in the Confederate military (because they were drafted; one had deserted).

Another category was those who had worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau (which was on its way to dissolving by 1868), as administrators and teachers. Francis Cardozo was a good representative of the idealism of many of the Black members of this group. Educated in Glasgow, London and Edinburgh as a minister, he told his New Haven congregation: “it is my duty to enter into the larger and more destitute fields of labor in the South & assist in the moral & religious elevation of the thousands of freedmen who, in the Providence of God, have gained their freedom.”

A small but influential category were members of the Charleston free Black elite, including members of the Brown Fellowship Society (founded in 1790, which as the name indicates did not admit anyone of full African background!). They included Robert DeLarge, who would go on to the U.S. House, and who had chaired the Republican committee that devised the platform used at the convention. William McKinlay’s family had been one of the wealthiest of all Blacks in the state, and had even owned a few slaves.

Ministers were another important component, especially among the Black delegates (from two important Black churches, Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal or “AME”). One of the most important ministers was Benjamin Randolph, free-born from Kentucky, who was educated at Oberlin in Ohio and who was one of the most radical and articulate in the convention debates. An even larger category was Blacks who had some special occupational skills: notably carpenters, barbers, and tailors, but also a shipping clerk (Alonzo Ransier, who would also become a U.S. congressman), and a blacksmith. Seventeen of the Blacks were from the North (including many of the most activist); 65% of them were literate, and only 13 of 74 didn’t own property.

On to the convention! Very importantly, the Black delegates arrived with a multi-point comprehensive plan (worked out after the speedy creation of a state Republican party in Mar. 1867). Those points included (from Holt):

1- no paying of debts associated with slavery & the Confederacy

2- the creation of a universal tax-supported public education system

3- government aid for projects to rebuild and expand war-damaged infrastructure, with fairly awarded contracts

4- no imprisonment for debt & no corporal punishment

5- unoccupied lands to be divided among the poor

6- protection of tenants & homesteads from eviction

7- a revised state legal code & reorganized judiciary

8- that the new civil rights for all citizens are to be perpetual

9- that the government has responsibility to care for the aged, sick & poor

Pretty breathtaking! Remember that it will be more than 60 years later, in the form of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, that the federal government will apply some of these social ideas on the national level…

While I have not yet found any published letters or diaries written by delegates, or observers, during the time of the convention (Jan.-Mar. 1868), there is one description of the physical setting within the Charleston Club:

The large room in the second story of the Club House had been divided into two parts by a wooden balustrade .... [One side] with benches ... for ... spectators. The other ... with chairs ... for . . . members. When the convention met yesterday the scene from the reporters' desks was as follows: In the background, behind the balustrade, a cloud of black faces interspersed with not more than two or three white ones… [Charleston Mercury, Jan. 15, 1868, in Logue- it should be noted that this same reporter described the meeting as a “desecration”!].

The white minority did get seats in front of the Black majority. The delegates chose a reputable and “shrewd” white Unionist (and Mason), Albert G. Mackey, as the president, and quickly set about the creation of committees to handle the various platform topics. Then they got down to the hard work of hammering out a constitution unlike any other seen before in Southern history.

As so often happens in big meetings, large and small and in any time period, participation was very unequal. In other words, a few people said a lot; some others spoke up when they felt strongly about the subject; and quite a few (to judge from searching the “Proceedings” by name) said nothing at all (although most seem to have participated in the most meaningful way, by voting for or against particular clauses). The delegates had major disagreements about only three central provisions: voting requirements; how to handle existing debts; and about whether the public education system should be racially integrated. The question of whether Black men could vote at the national level hadn’t yet been decided, but was on the horizon (that would happen in 1870, with the 15th Amendment, which also shattered the national women’s rights movement by omitting women). But the delegates agreed that in South Carolina they could (as part of “universal” suffrage for those over 21). The discussion about voting requirements centered instead on whether a literacy test should be required (which would have excluded most of the eligible men, white as well as Black). It was decided, by a large majority, not to use that test (though a poll tax was included, as a way to fund the public schools). No one pushed for the old system (of requiring possession of a certain amount of property in order to vote).

On the topic of voting, one important Black delegate, Northern-born lawyer William Whipper, actually introduced a motion to give women the vote (he was married to the most famous of the Rollin sisters, who I will discuss in a bit!). It was dismissed (and even treated as a joke by some!) without even a roll call; if it had passed, South Carolina would have been the first, not just in the nation (Wyoming Territory would be the first, in 1869), but in world history! (New Zealand would be the first country, in 1893). Whipper would try again in the near future, and there would be a small suffrage movement during Reconstruction (though in the end female voting would be delayed until the national 19th Amendment, in 1920)… But the constitution did improve women’s rights, by expanding their control of their wealth, and giving them the power to divorce!

The debt issue was a tough one. The vast majority of small farmers, of both races, were in deep debt and poverty in the aftermath of the war (and from the recession that followed). If the constitution were to exempt small farms from debt collection (thus preventing foreclosures and evictions), it risked violating the Contracts Clause in the federal Constitution (as well as angering all creditors). Also- should white landowners, who had supported the Confederacy, get debt relief?? The more radical Black delegates said “no way”! On the other hand, could this fragile new Reconstruction government afford to offend just about all whites by making a racial distinction? In the end, the delegates chose to include rather muddled language (essentially dodging the issue).

The debt issue was entangled with a hugely important issue: how hundreds of thousands of freed slaves were to get access to land. As mentioned, Pres. Johnson had forced them off white property in the fall of 1865, and Radical Republicans in Congress never unified behind the idea of outright confiscation of that property. After Congress refused a request for $1 million to purchase land, the South Carolina delegates came up with a unique solution: a Land Commission, to purchase land and resell it in small pieces to the freedmen, with long repayment times and low interest. Unfortunately the first white head, C.P. Leslie, was both corrupt and incompetent; the second (Black), Robert DeLarge, was well-meaning but also incompetent. The Commission didn’t start to fulfill its potential until Francis Cardozo (also Black) ran it (1872-76); in the end, by the Commission’s end in 1890, about 14,000 Black families were resettled on about 45,000 acres. As many have pointed out, the broad failure, at the state and national level, to provide the majority of African Americans with a land base has a great deal to do with white/Black wealth gap that has persisted ever since.

Just about all of the delegates agreed on the need to create a public school system (the most important leader on this issue was Francis Cardozo, a half-Jewish free Black man from Charleston, who chaired the Education Committee). That might sound strange to modern readers, but the state (as was true throughout the South) had never had such a system as such! Wealthy whites hired private tutors, and only wealthy white boys went to one of a handful of colleges (most notably the future University of South Carolina). Only about 10% of white children from families of ordinary means were being educated. Slaves were banned from any form of education (though a few literate slaves did teach others in secret, and the small free Black population managed to educate its young, at least the boys). Creating a public system, such as Massachusetts had pioneered, was seen as a necessity, but everyone knew just how big a commitment that meant: building hundreds of schools, across an almost entirely rural state with poor transportation; staffing those schools; coming up with standards and overall administration; and, most importantly, funding it all (including textbooks, salaries, etc.) indefinitely! Of course the issue of race had to be considered, too; would parents, Black as well as white, send their kids to an integrated school?? If the answer was no, then two sets of schools would have to be created! In the end the decision was to declare the system “open to all,” without mandating integration. The constitution also created a “normal school” (for teacher education), and an “agricultural and mechanical institute” (the forerunner of South Carolina State). In the end, education was probably the constitution’s most lasting success, dramatically cutting both white and Black illiteracy; 125,000 children were in school by 1877. At one point what is now the University of South Carolina was majority-Black!

The delegates included important changes in the state’s basic political structure. Up to now, there had only been “districts,” local areas drawn up with no actual local government (the General Assembly made all of the important decisions). From now on (in a reform that was immediately popular), those districts would become “counties,” and the residents would get to vote for largely self-governing Boards of County Commissioners. Four new counties would be created under the constitution. At the same time, the power of the governor, already popularly elected, was increased (two-year terms rather than four, but with one chance for reelection). Now governors were given veto power, under the same terms as the U.S. president (that is, subject to override by 2/3 of the legislature). They also had the important power of patronage (distributing the non-elected government jobs). The constitution included a variety of other reforms, including state support for its citizens who were blind, deaf, or mentally ill. It eliminated imprisonment for debt. Ministers were now able to run for public office.

Frances Rollin Whipper, by unknown photographer in 1870 (Public Domain)

While women were left out of the convention, and out of a direct role in politics as a whole, it’s important to mention the role played by the Rollin sisters. Frances, Charlotte, Katherine, Marie and Florence Rollin grew up as well-to-do free people of color in Charleston. Frances, the oldest, was educated in Philadelphia; in 1867, she moved to Boston after being commissioned by the prominent Black activist Martin Delany to write his biography (as her diary shows, at 22 she frequently socialized with the likes of Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison, and heard Dickens give a reading of his work!). She returned to Charleston as a teacher of freed slaves, and all of them moved to the capital, Columbia. Frances married delegate and prominent lawyer William Whipper, and the other sisters lived in an elegant house just a few steps from the State House. All the top politicians came to parties there, and Northern reporters were charmed by the sisters’ looks, fine dresses, and witty banter. All of the sisters lobbied for women’s rights, including the vote, at every chance. As one reporter put it, “in the parlors of that mansion much of the wisdom which controls our affairs is generated.”

Thomas Nast's racist 1874 Harper's Weekly cartoon, "Colored Rule in a Reconstructed State" (Library of Congress)- the goddess Columbia is rebuking the Black politicians: ""You are aping the lowest whites. If you disgrace your race in this way you had better take back seats."

On Mar. 17, 1868, after about two months of hard work, the convention concluded with the signing of the 15-article document. While there had certainly been passionate disagreements, their consensus was remarkable. President Albert Mackey declared it “the organic law of the land” “subject to the ratification of the people”: “At this announcement the Convention spontaneously rose to its feet and broke forth in loud and prolonged cheering.” In the future, delegates would always speak of the document with pride.

Now it was time for its ratification, and for election of the new legislature; exhilarating, because (even though we have no record or polling) surely the voters who had chosen the delegates had been preparing for this big moment. The Democrats (with many ex-Confederates still barred from voting) protested loudly (as did the white press), and the Democrats tried a concession (that Blacks “qualified by property and intelligence” could vote, if they rejected the constitution!). At the same time they sent a memorial to Congress saying that the document was “the work of Northern adventurers, Southern renegades, and ignorant Negroes”! Radical leader Thaddeus Stevens simply replied: “What the protest claimed as grievances . . . [we regard] as virtues.”

On Apr. 14-16, voters approved the document (by 70,000 to 27,000), and chose an entirely new set of representatives. They did so despite predictable violence; at least two Black candidates and one white were murdered during the voting (and 3 delegates, white and Black, would be murdered by November!). The Black delegates had agreed (with only one objection) among themselves that most state-wide candidates should be white, to promote harmony (Francis Cardozo was elected as secretary of state, in charge of elections- the first Black ever to hold state-wide office in the U.S.!). The new governor would be former Union Gen. Robert Scott, who had built trust with the freed slaves as the state Freedmen’s Bureau head. Of 157 legislators, 84 were Black (including a majority in the house) and 72 were white. Many of the delegates were included. The new government got another big boost with the election of Ulysses Grant as president in November, defeating white supremacist Horatio Seymour. Grant’s commitment to applying military force, especially to the successful suppression of the Ku Klux Klan, would be crucial. By 1870, Jonathan Wright would be sworn in as the first Black judge, on the state supreme court, and Black congressmen from South Carolina would start to arrive in the U.S. House!

It would take much more space here (and would certainly tax you readers!!) for me to follow up properly on how the Reconstruction government unfolded, through three governors and nine more years. I also don't have the space for comparing the South Carolina experiment with the other 10 across the South (they were each very aware of the other constitutions being written). Of course the sad truth is well known in hindsight- that this moment of interracial state-building would not last. It had always had a fragile foundation: white and Black Republicans had to maintain a completely united front (which ultimately failed), and the Radical Republicans in Congress had to do the same; a task that became much harder when the country went into economic crisis in 1873.

By 1877, the experiment was effectively dead; the federal troops were gone, and the Democrats (led by former Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton) were back in charge. Those Democrats would effectively slander (and ultimately erase, as in future textbooks) the Reconstruction politicians in the minds of the white public for generations- as greedy, irretrievably corrupt, and incapable of good governing. The supporters of Reconstruction either left the state or retreated into powerless obscurity. In 1895, the Democrats would write a new constitution (over the protests of the few remaining Black delegates), one that reversed most of the policies of the 1868 document (though as stated, public education, though certainly racially unequal, would survive). The 70-year-long heartache of Jim Crow racial oppression had begun.

But I don’t want to end on that note. The writers of the 1868 constitution had shown, at just one short step past emancipation, how much progress could be made toward fashioning a fair and multiethnic democracy. In Jan. 1869, a white Northern teacher (who would shortly found a long-lasting Black school in Aiken), Martha Schofield, visited the state legislature. Her sense of wonder is worth our attention today:

…it was with strange feelings that I sat in that body where all men were equal before the law, where those whose race had been oppressed for two centuries, were now making laws for the oppressors- The colored members appeared much at ease and at home as the others- We then went to the House where colored and white, democrats and republicans were sandwiched in a way that would disturb the dead bones of many of Carolina’s proud sons.…Who would have prophesied this 10 years since.

I realize this post has run on much longer than usual, and I beg your forgiveness, dear readers! I believe that the topic has much to say about our fraught political moment in 2024, as our concept of democracy is being tested (or fought over) yet again.

Also- I will now, as I did last summer, be taking a seasonal break from blogging! But, I promise, I’ll be back again before Labor Day! I strongly encourage my readers to make more topic suggestions in the meantime (your response to the Cahokia post was wonderful); they’ve been very inspiring! Happy Fourth!!

Resources:

Andrews, Sidney. “The South Since the War: As Shown by Fourteen Weeks of Travel and Observation in Georgia and the Carolinas.” original= 1865 (Internet Archive-

(https://archive.org/details/southsincewarass0000sidn/page/n127/mode/2up).

Baggett, James Alex. “The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the War and Reconstruction.” (2003)

Campbell, Alexia Fernandez, April Simpson, and Pratheek Rabal. “40 Acres and a Lie,” Mother Jones, July/Aug. 2024 (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/40-acres-reconstruction-freedmen-bureau-stolen-land/) An extraordinary joint project (Mother Jones, Center for Public Integrity, and Reveal Podcast) to transcribe and investigate thousands of Freedmen’s Bureau records!! Searchable.

Dray, Philip. “Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen.” (2008)

Edgar, Walter. “South Carolina: A History.” (1998)

Farris, Scott. “Freedom on Trial: The First Post-Civil War Battle Over Civil Rights and Voter Suppression.” (2020- about 1st KKK in SC)

Foner, Eric. “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877).” (1988) The source of modern historical views of Reconstruction.

Ginsberg, Benjamin. “Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag during Radical Reconstruction.” (2010)

Holt, Thomas C. “Black over white: Negro political leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction.” (1977- on Internet Archive) Invaluable.

Jaffe, Caleb. “Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright and the Failure of Reconstruction in South Carolina,” Michigan Journal of Race and Law Vol. 8 (2003) Also valuable analysis of state racial politics.

Kinghan, Neil. “A Brief Moment in the Sun: Francis Cardozo and Reconstruction in South Carolina.” (2023)

Kytle, Ethan J. & Blain Roberts. “Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy.” (2018- Charleston)

Logue, Cal M. “Racist Reporting During Reconstruction.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 1979, pp. 335–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784304. Accessed 19 June 2024.

Mullen, Lincoln. “The Spread of U.S. Slavery, 1790-1860.” (https://lincolnmullen.com/projects/slavery/) Very helpful- has county-by-county data for slave, free Black, & total populations for each census.

Powers, Bernard. “Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885.” (1999)

Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention [of 1868]. Internet Archive. Note: recorded by stenographer Joseph Woodruff, & pub. before adjournment [from A.G. Mackey’s preface]. Basic primary source.

Reece, Lewis. “Righteous Lives: A Comparative Study of the South Carolina Scalawag Leadership During Reconstruction.” (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/79658908.pdf)- 2003.

Rhea, Gordon C.R. “Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction.” (2021)

Richardson, Heather Cox. “South Carolina’s Remarkable Democratic Experiment of 1868.” (https://werehistory.org/south-carolinas-remarkable-democratic-experiment/), 2018.

Rubin III, Hyman. “South Carolina Scalawags.” (2006)

Simpson, Brook (ed.). “Reconstruction: Voices from America’s First Great Struggle for Racial Equality.” (2018- primary sources)

South Carolina Encyclopedia. Various articles (scencyclopedia.org).

Wikipedia.org. Various articles.