Nine) had the Wilmington Messenger call for a mass meeting. That evening, the paper published "Attention White Men", telling all white men to meet at the courthouse the following morning for "important" business. On the morning of November 9, the courthouse was packed with 600 men of all professions and economic classes. Hugh MacRae sat in front with the former mayor, S.H. Fishblate, and other prominent white Democrats. When Alfred Waddell arrived, MacRae provided him a copy of "The White Declaration of Independence", which Waddell read to the crowd, "asserting the supremacy of the white man". He proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution "did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin", that "never again will white men of New Hanover County permit black political participation", that "the Negro [should] stop antagonizing our interests in every way, especially by his ballot", and that the city should "give to white men a large part of the employment heretofore given to Negroes". The full text of the Declaration is as follows: The crowd gave Waddell a standing ovation and 457 signed their names to adopt the proclamation, which would be published in the newspapers, without concealing who they were. The group then decided to give the city's black residents 12 hours to comply with it. Alexander Manly had already shut his press down and left town when he was alerted, by a white friend, that the Red Shirts were going to lynch him that night. Manly's friend gave him $25 and told him a password to bypass white guards on Fulton Bridge, as bands of Red Shirts were patrolling the banks, trains, and steamboats. Once Manly, along with his brother Frank and two other fair-skinned black men, Jim Telfain and Owen Bailey, approached the guards, after escaping through the woods, the guards let them pass. The guards, believing the four men to be white, also invited them to the "necktie party" they were going to that evening for "that scoundrel Manly". The guards even loaded their buggies with Winchester rifles in case they spotted Manly on their way out of the city. Waddell's Committee of Twenty-Five summoned the Committee of Colored Citizens (CCC), a group of 32 prominent black citizens, to the courthouse at 6:00 pm. They told the CCC of their ultimatum, instructing them to direct the rest of the city's black citizens to fall in line. When the