Chapter XI: Section 23: "The following persons shall be excluded from (1)

registering and voting: Idiots, insane persons, and paupers;
persons who, prior to the adoption of this Constitution, were
disqualified from voting, by conviction of crime, either within
or without this State, and whose disabilities shall not have
been removed, persons convicted after the adoption of this
Constitution, either within or without this State, of treason,
or of any felony, bribery, petit larceny, etc."

The intention of these acts needs no showing. They have three points in common: (a) Some device enabling all the white voters to evade the force of the disfranchising clauses; (b) The limiting clauses themselves which deprive a majority of the colored voters of their franchise; (c) The reservation of sufficient discretionary power in boards of registrars to enable them to give full effect to the acknowledged purpose of the framers of the constitutions. I know of no lesson they can teach us, except how to do the things we ought not to do. In some cases, by knowing the way down, one may, by reversing the steps taken, regain the lost height. But it is not so here; our fall, like our rise, has been too sudden. We have been thrown from a window, and before we could understand our position, legislated out of a back gate. Only by superior chicane can we repair the second injury, only by superior force repair the first--unless there be justice in the heart of the nation. It behooves us then to study carefully the state of public opinion in the country, which underlies these laws, and gives them whatever stability they possess.

There is, of course, a series of events leading up to this radical change in the institutions of the Republic, a history beginning before the formation of the Union itself. The first part was African slavery. Religious, moral and economic forces had acted upon serfdom, the more common sort of slavery in Europe, and aided by the resulting increase of vigor among the serfs themselves, had disintegrated it. But these forces either did not act upon the trade in Negro slaves, when profits to be obtained from that traffic filled the minds of merchants, or were helpless to stop it. The New World was not, like the Old, overcrowded, but in need of laborers--and the slaves were blacks. Tropical South America, the West Indies, and the hot belt of the United States absorbed hundreds of thousands of Negro slaves. All the forces above enumerated set to work again after a time and slavery once more began to disintegrate. In this country it had become firmly rooted in the Southern states, where the same American people who had fought in '76 for the freedom of two million white men, women and children fought as stubbornly to keep in slavery four million black men, women and children. But victory was again to crown the cause of freedom, and by the will of the victors, forced forward by the unbroken spirit of resistance of the conquered, these four millions of slaves were declared possessed of freedom, civil rights and political privileges.

Said Lord Shaftesbury to Charles the Second, when called on for his resignation as Lord Chancellor, "It is only to lay aside the gown and take up the sword." The South, defeated in arms, reversed the process, and laying down the musket, put on the gown of the law-maker, and began to accomplish by legislation, the reenslavement of the millions set free. Hampered in this, for a time by the armies and the northern civil officers, who obtained power largely by the suffrage of the colored people, and by the colored voters themselves, the Southern men waited for the withdrawal of the Union armies--an event hastened by outcry at home--and then taking out the side-arms, which the generous terms of surrender had permitted them to retain, they rapidly dispersed the opposing force, and took the reins of government again into their own hands. With musket in one hand to retain political power, and pen in the other to undo the Reconstruction legislation, they soon deprived the black millions of all their transitory political and civil rights. It is hard to see that anything remained to be done. Emancipation laws and proclamations to the contrary, the Negro seemed safely penned. But moral and economic forces were still at work, and the end was not yet reached.

The South could no longer close its eyes to the want of prosperity. In 1890, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, in spite of their 262,175 square miles and abundant resources, had but 8,346,667 people and 288,405,107 dollars worth of manufactured products. An equal territory in the States of the North, namely; Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio and Illinois with 260,823 square miles had 25,074,143 people and 6,484,643,842 dollars worth of manufactured products--which is to say, the Southern states had but one-third of the population, and one-twenty-second of the manufactures of the same area North. The South wanting prosperity began to seek ways of obtaining it. This led to the consideration of obstacles: and first among these was the large and economically inefficient colored population. It must be made, for want of other labor, productive, a contributory agent to the new industrial prosperity of the South--and not the less, cut off from any sort of control, even of the industries, which by its labor must mainly be built up. The problem was a difficult one, yet such as the South felt itself able to solve. And many in the North stood ready to help.

In 1890, however, came troubles so serious as to require a diversion of attention from economical to political problems. The Republican party pledge to secure for all citizens 'a free ballot and a fair count' was yet unredeemed; and in that year a debate broke out in Congress over the fulfilling of its promise, with an Elections bill as the means. Simultaneously, the Populist movement was growing to threatening proportions. Before this, the cry had been that the Negro by sheer numbers could dominate, if not prevented from doing so. But now there presented itself a new and more threatening danger. "In any state where the whites divide," said Mr. Tillman in the Senate in 1900, "and they have divided in every Southern State except mine and Mississippi--into Populists and Democrats--the Negro has been the balance of power." The Populist movement died, but this phantasm once evoked, of a black man poised at the centre of the party see-saw, continued to hover at the beck of its creators until again wanted. The occasion, this time a lasting one, has been found in the balance of the Republican and the Democratic parties in the "border" states. So in Maryland, for a while, a "doubtful" state, where the colored population is but one-fifth of the whole, a disfranchising law is justified, apparently, by the danger to good government of allowing the Republican party to obtain control. Again, in the county and town election contests, even in the Southern states where the Democratic party is in entire possession of the State government, this compact(?) and mobile(?) army of black voters occupies a position of such strategical importance that unless they be dislodged by the most radical method their mastery must be forever acknowledged(?). Now, to conclude, since a dozen colored voters might hold the balance of power in town or county, the bitter irony of the situation is overwhelming.[1] The South is simply driven by its own irrefutable(?) logic to total disfranchisement of the Negro, there being no safe stopping point short of the practical exclusion of the colored inhabitants of a dozen or more states from any part in the making or administering of the laws, national, state or municipal under which they live(!). All this the South, impelled by her honest desire(!) for good government, and resolutely turning her back upon past methods of fraud and violence,(!) means to accomplish legally--provided Congress and the Supreme Court throw over her naked but unalterable will the broad mantle of legality.

[1] In West Virginia there are, on the Census basis (958,800 = whole
population, less 43,499-colored population = 915,301-white
population, divided by 3.6 = ratio of white population, generally
to white males of voting age.) 254,250 white voters; and (43,499 =
colored population, divided by 4.3-ratio of colored population to
colored male adults = 10,116 colored voters, of whom 32.3 per cent.
are illiterate, = 3267 illiterate colored men,) but 3,267
illiterate colored voters, or about one eightieth of the electorate
(257,517 divided by 3,267): yet, even though the national ticket
threatened to be hurt by it, it was impossible to stifle the cry
for disfranchisement of ignorant black voters as the paramount
issue of the West Virginia democratic campaign of 1904.

We are reminded of the story of the princess, who wandering in rags, came to a palace and begged accommodation there befitting one of royal blood. The old queen, not sure that she was a princess, determined to test her veracity in this way: She lay a pea upon the floor and piled upon it a dozen feather-beds. If she felt the pea, it was plain that she was a true princess. Morning came none too soon for the unhappy lady, who confessed to the queen having spent a miserable night, something hard in her bed having bruised her till she was black and blue. No longer could the queen doubt that she was a real princess, for who else could have been so delicate. And she was forthwith married to the heir apparent to the throne. So the South acts on the belief that if she be absolutely intolerant of the slightest degree of political power in the hands of colored men, that the North must see in the very violence of her antipathy, the hopelessness of any other solution.

This happily settled, the South after fifteen years of uncertainty, hopes to be able to turn her attention to material problems. But though the Caesars may rob February of days to enrich July and August, the seasons remain unchanged. The economic and moral laws of the universe remain in operation and give assurance that no solution can be more than temporary in which the Negro is dealt with falsely and unjustly.

Meantime what had been the course of the Republican party, which, by its own declaration "had reconstructed the Union with freedom instead of slavery as its corner-stone?" Listen to the reading of the suffrage planks in the platforms of ten presidential campaigns:--

[1868.]

The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.

The recent amendments to the National Constitution should be cordially sustained because they are right, not merely tolerated because they are law, and should be carried out according to their spirit by appropriate legislation, the enforcement of which can safely be entrusted only to the party that secured those amendments.

[1872.]

Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reason of race, creed, color or previous condition of servitude.

[1876.]

The Republican party has preserved these governments to the hundredth anniversary of the Nation's birth, and they are now embodiments of the great truth spoken at its cradle--"that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that for the attainment of these ends governments have been instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Until these truths are cheerfully obeyed, or, if need be, vigorously enforced, the work of the Republican party is unfinished.

The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights is a duty to which the Republican party stands sacredly pledged. The power to provide for the enforcement of the principles embodied in the recent Constitutional Amendments is vested by those amendments in the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of the Government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their constitutional powers for removing any just causes of discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a Congress and a Chief Executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall.

[1880.]

The dangers of a "Solid South" can only be averted by a faithful performance of every promise which the Nation has made to the citizen. The execution of the laws, and the punishment of all those who violate them, are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured and genuine prosperity established throughout the South. Whatever promises the Nation makes the Nation must perform. A Nation cannot with safety relegate this duty to the States. The "Solid South" must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all honest opinions must there find free expression. To this end the honest voter must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud.

[1884.]

The perpetuity of our institutions rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, an honest count, and correct returns. We denounce the fraud and violence practiced by the Democracy in Southern States, by which the will of a voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free institutions; and we solemnly arraign the Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of fruits of such fraud and violence.

We extend to the Republicans of the South, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the passage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition, possession and exercise of all civil and political rights.

[1888.]

We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the national Constitution and to the indissoluble union of the States; to the autonomy reserved to the States under the Constitution; to the personal rights and liberties of citizens in all the States and Territories in the Union, and especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections and to have that ballot duly counted. We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority.

[1892.]

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our Republican institutions, and the party will never relent its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.

[1896.]

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot, and that such ballot to be counted and returned as cast.

[1900.]

It was the plain purpose of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary, and should be condemned.

[1904.]

We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconstitutionally limited, and, if such is the case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral colleges shall be proportionally reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States.

From '68 till '96 there was posted on the bill-boards of the party, the same declaration in favor of a free and unrestricted ballot, supported by the unyielding determination of the party to protect this right. But in that year there came a change. Perhaps it was that the mass of unredeemed pledges fell of their own weight, and the time seemed opportune to substitute a less weighty declaration; perhaps the party only sought a more efficient means of accomplishing its unalterable purpose. Whatever the cause, there began from this time, a diminuendo which has grown fainter until in 1904 the 15th Amendment was heard no more. To time, some say, must be left this task, too great for a political party to perform. But there is grave danger in leaving to time the execution of justice. The evil grows, the power of correcting it diminishes. Early in its course injustice may be stopped, later perhaps not at all. The future course of the party with regard 'to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections and to have that ballot duly counted,' is gravely complicated by the rapid and momentous changes taking place in American society.

The gulf between the sections, which the Constitution merely bridged proved so deep, because it grew out of differences in the social, if not the moral natures of the inhabitants of the two parts of the country. These types have been compared to those opposed in the English Civil War, and hence called Puritan and Cavalier. But whatever the name, the differential fact was this: in the North men and women did their own work, while in the South others did their work for them. Until this great economic and social difference, which made diverging ideals, diverging habits, diverging tastes, ceased to be, real sympathy was impossible. That gulf, which widened into bitter civil war, is now closing; the two types are drawing nearer; the divorce between sections is shifting around to a divorce between classes. Therefore it is that in a part of the writing and ruling class, we feel that there is a gravitating of morals southward.[2] The North, which spent millions in lives and money to destroy Negro slavery in the South, seems engaged in making white slaves at home. If the political and social position of the white laborer in the North is declining, our chance of obtaining justice through active Northern sympathy is greatly lessened. In this issue which remains that of the comparative "hideousness" of the slave-holder and the slave, every foot added to the social separation of the Northern employer and employee is a stroke in the knell of political equality for the Negro.

[2] "The Republican party in its work of imposing the sovereignty of
the United States upon eight millions of Asiatics, has changed its
views in regard to the political relation of races and has at last
virtually accepted the ideas of the South upon that subject. The
white men of the South need now have no further fear that the
Republican party, or Republican administrations, will ever again
give themselves over to the vain imagination of the political
equality of man."

--[Burgess--Reconstruction and the Constitution, page 298.]

It is a mistake, therefore, to assume that there is active in the country a spirit of freedom strong enough to set us free; a power employed in doing justice, strong enough to do justice to us. The country is returning to the conditions existing before '61, even passing these and returning to the conditions existing before 1776,--in politics, because it is doing the same in _morals_. Moral betterment requires that we put a deeper, broader and stronger foundation under the old foundation of our lives; and this can only be done by removing each day a bit of sand and filling in the space with stone. Days of tremendous business activity, or national triumph are not likely to be so spent.

We _must_ not make the mistake of assuming that there is power in the nation to do us justice. "Not in a republic," some one may ask? No! Von Holst says: "That virtue is the specific vital principle of republics is a delusion. The historical course of development, natural circumstances, material interests and political and social customs are the elements by which, in all states without exception, the form of the state is in the first place conditioned." Not after the pledges of the Constitution, again it may be asked? No, the Constitution is an ideal, not a real body of law. Von Holst wrote: "Polk had once stated that the nature of American institutions offered the world ample security that the United States would never pursue a policy of aggressive conquest. Notwithstanding the commentary that he had himself given on this proposition, it contained a kernel of significant truth. The nature of their institutions forbade the United States to hold in violent subjection, under the iron hand of conquest, a realm of the extent of Mexico for any length of time. This would soon have become so perfectly clear to the people that they would either have driven the originator and guiding spirit of the war in shame and disgrace from his office and dignity, and have reduced all these conditions of peace to the utmost moderation, or they would have proceeded to a formal and complete incorporation of Mexico with the Union." And before 1900, as a result of the war with Spain, the impossible, the absolutely forbidden by the nature of their institutions had been accomplished. How obscure the vision of the historian! The Constitution is not written in the hearts of the American people, but in the sky, where it is hidden every cloudy day. And yet again, it will be asked: Not in the New World, not in America? Justice demands a careful consideration of every case; it cannot be machine-made; it cannot be wholesaled. The exact measure of justice is hard to find, harder to administer; it cannot be had without patient search, calm temper, righteousness, courage. I know not whether America has time to seek the intricate path of justice, or patience and courage to follow it when found. The cry 'forward' grows even louder, more insistent, more passionate. Can the country safely put down the brakes; dare it turn from its rapid way to material prosperity? But a little greater momentum is needed and reactionaries will rise only to be irresistibly swept aside. Doubts, weariness, exhaustion even will not stop the rapidly revolving wheels. Only in the _wake_ of such frenzied progress there will follow rest, the rest of death. Study the wreckage in the South in the trail of slavery, black, and what is far worse, white illiteracy, brutality, wretched sloth. Observe the turning of defeat in the struggle into despair, then stagnation upon which forms a film, a scum, a crust which becomes strong enough to defy efforts to break it. So is brought about the stratification of society called caste. Above, the upper world, ever turning to law and punishment to crush those who threaten this floor, upon which they stand from beneath, ever appealing to the prejudices of their class to persecute into submission those whose sense of justice or generosity threatens the crust from above. Beneath, the under world, sweating, spawning, gathering from its own misery and the dregs of vice and luxury from above poison, and shaping from its own eager thousands of ambitious men,--yes, and after the boldest men of the class above, fangs, that it may become all that revolution is wont to be.

In such a society is born the conqueror, man of destiny, as he seems. In mountain, in desert or in slum, he may have his birth. Oftenest he is a military, yet sometimes a spiritual conqueror. In the west of Europe, two thousand years ago was born Julius Caesar; in the East, Jesus Christ. From mountain, wilderness and slum, each drew his followers. Caesar gathered the driftwood of the decaying Republic into an army, and upon this bridge crossed the Rubicon and established empire. Christ, too, gathered up the driftwood of decaying Rome and fashioned out of it that noble band which is the inspiration of every true Church in the Christian world. The classes you would disfranchise will become the makers of a political slum. They are materials for working out the glory or the ruin of the nation. Exclude them from the benefits, the privileges of other classes and you invite criminality: from outcast to outlaw is but one step. Include them, and who can measure the addition to the sum of human happiness? In the answer to the question: what forces are at work checking the too great increase of a people? what is the principle of selection? what sort are disappearing, what sort preserved?--may be read the country's destiny.

Outside of the slave states, equal participation in the government by all citizens has been the foundation stone of the Republic. For a brief moment slavery was dead, and all men were freemen. But slavery is alive again, and if its growth is not resisted, will again be restored in all but name. The words of Calhoun deserve to be called a prophecy. "_Without political and social equality_," he said, "_to change the condition of the African race would be but to change the form of slavery."_ The South accepts the alternative and resolves that, whatever the cost, political and social equality shall never be. The North must yield; _she_ will not. While some are trusting to the finality of the 13th Amendment, others to industrial opportunity, others still to political without social equality, the South with bull-dog tenacity sticks to her resolution that there shall be none of these. But a year ago Carl Schurz declared: "There will be a movement either in the direction of reducing the Negro to a permanent condition of serfdom ... or a movement in the direction of recognizing him as a citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail."

Are there reasons wanting why the nation should keep true to its foundation principles? Granting that the pathway to freedom is now harder to follow, should the forward movement be abandoned? How else than by manfully pressing on to a broad humanity, can the Republic, reconstructed with freedom as its corner-stone, remain? As the old cords fail to hold together the more distant and divided political and ethnic units of population, there must be woven new bonds of sympathy,--at least, of toleration, else some must be hung with chains. There are many, many reasons, rulers of the commonwealth, why the electorate should not be reduced:--

Above all, it is selfish. "The continual and diligent elevation of that lower mass which human society everywhere is constantly precipitating," to borrow the words of Cable, is incompatible with the _spirit_ of restriction.

It is inequitable. For, again quoting from this author: "There is no safe protection but self-protection: poverty needs at least as much civil equipment, for self-protection as property needs: the right and liberty to acquire intelligence, virtue and wealth are just as precious as the right and liberty to maintain them, and need quite as much self-protection."

It is subversive of the republican basis of the state,--tending as it does to deposit more and more political power in the hands of fewer and fewer men. From "all up" to "some down" in the matter of political rights is a precipitous leap: but this step once taken, a gentle slope succeeds. From many to fewer members of the privileged class, the mind advances easily, with no intrusive principle to block the way. If a poll tax of one dollar can be made a condition of voting regardless of ability to pay it, then why not ten or twenty? If a poll tax, why not a property tax, or wealth? If ability to interpret the Constitution, why not a college education?

As restriction is practiced in the South, it breeds contempt for the law:

And increasing unrest, for like a snowball it swells and gathers fresh resistance as it goes:

And dishonesty, for the disfranchising laws are not being lived up to. This is inherent, for the acquisition of the required knowledge or wealth would defeat the very object of the law. It puts a premium upon ignorance, for thereby the desired end of disfranchisement is furthered:--And upon thriftlessness, for the same reason;--And upon criminality and false charges of crime, since even this price must be paid by those determined to work their will.

What evils of universal suffrage are equal to these? Can an appeal be made in the name of minority rights by those who would themselves efface minorities?[3] When slaves were escaping, they demanded that the constitutional guarantees be fulfilled to the letter, clamored like Shylock for the pound of flesh which the law allowed. Now, too, they demand of the amendments as before of the clauses of the instrument reserving power to the states, that they be construed by the letter:--but with what a change of object,--no longer that the rights of minorities may be respected but that they may be utterly suppressed.

[3] In two states, viz; Mississippi and South Carolina, the colored
people are in the majority. In the other four disfranchising
states, as well as all other Southern states, they are in the
minority. In the group of states disfranchising the colored voters,
viz; N. C., S. C., Va., Ala., Miss., and La., the

white population is
5,396,649 = 55 per cent.

colored " "
4,453,253 = 45 per cent.

total " "
9,849,902 = 100 per cent.

--BY THE 12TH CENSUS (1900.)

And if it be asserted that the superior must be allowed to rule, is superiority to be proved by a fiat of brute force? Is mere armed lawlessness the index of superior worth? When the nations agreed to fix limits to the cruelties of war, did they thereby place a penalty upon brains?

Finally, is it claimed that a free ballot signifies unlimited corruption? Read the answer in England's purification of her politics: I quote from Sir Thomas Erskine May:--

"Political morality may be elevated by extending liberties: but bribery has everywhere been the vice of growing wealth." "The first election of George the Third's reign was signalized by unusual excesses:" A seat in Parliament was for sale, like an estate and they bought it without hesitation or misgiving. "Nor were they regarded with much favor by the leaders of parties; for men who had bought their seats,--and paid dearly for them,--owed no allegiance to political patrons. "They sought admission to Parliament, not so much with a view to a political career, as to serve mere personal ends, to forward commercial speculations, to extend their connections and to gratify their social aspirations. But their independence and ambition well fitted them for the service of the court.... They soon ranged themselves among the king's friends: and thus the court policy,--which was otherwise subversive of freedom became associated with parliamentary corruption. "When the return of members was left to a small but independent body of electors, their individual votes were secured by bribery: and where it rested with proprietors or corporations, the seat was purchased outright." Gatton e. g. was sold for L75,000. Of the 658 members of the House of Commons 487 were returned by nomination ... not more than one third of the House were the free choice of the limited bodies of electors then intrusted with the franchise.... Representatives holding their seats by a general system of corruption could scarcely fail to be themselves corrupt. What they had bought, they were but too ready to sell. And how glittering the prizes offered as the price of their services! Peerages, baronetcies, patronage and court favor for the rich--places, pensions and bribes for the needy. All that the government had to bestow they could command.... Another instrument of corruption was found in the raising of money for the public service. In March 1763, Lord Bute contracted a loan of three millions and a half; and having distributed shares among his friends,--the scrip immediately rose to a premium of 11 per cent.... Here the country sustained a loss of L385,000.... Stock jobbing became the fashion; and many members of Parliament were notoriously concerned in it. Again in 1781 ... a loan of L12,000,000 was contracted to defray the cost of the disastrous American war.... Its terms were so favorable that suddenly the scrip rose nearly 11 per cent. It was computed by Mr. Fox that a profit of L900,000 would be derived from the loan; and by others that half of the loan was subscribed for by members of the House of Commons. Lord Rockingham said. "The loan was made merely for the purpose of corrupting the Parliament to support a wicked, impolitic and ruinous _war_.

Now as to the electorate. "In Scotland in 1831, the total number of county voters did not exceed 2500; and the constituencies of the 66 boroughs amounted to 1440.... The county of Argyll, with a population of 100,000 had but 115 electors: Caithness with 36,000, contained 47 free holders. Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two first cities of Scotland, had each a constituency of 33 persons.... A great kingdom, with more than two millions of people,--intelligent, instructed, industrious and peaceable,--was virtually disfranchised.... According to a statement made by the Duke of Richmond in 1780, not more than 6,000 men returned a clear majority of the British House of Commons.... It was alleged in the petition of the Society of the Friends of the People (presented in 1793.) that 84 individuals absolutely returned 157 members to Parliament ... and that a majority of the House were returned by 154 patrons....

"The glaring defects and vices of the representative system which have now been exposed,--the restricted and unequal franchise, the bribery of a limited electoral body, and the corruption of the representatives themselves,--formed the strongest arguments for Parliamentary reform.... The theory of an equal representation, had in the course of ages, been entirely subverted.... The Reform bill of 1832 supplied the cure. "It was," says May, "a measure, at once bold, comprehensive, moderate and constitutional. Popular: but not democratic:--it extended liberty, without hazarding revolution. In 1850 the representation of the country was reconstructed on a wider basis. Large classes had been admitted to the franchise: and the House of Commons represented more freely the interests and political sentiments of the people. The reformed Parliament, accordingly, has been more liberal and progressive in its policy than the Parliaments of old, more vigorous and active; more susceptible to the influence of public opinion: and more secure in the confidence of the people."

Here let us leave the history of English political corruption and the remedy which was found in a fairer representation of the people. In truth, we might well have left it sooner--if not altogether; for it is likely to be said that all of this is nothing to the purpose. The South has before her the practical problem of dealing with some millions of Negroes, to the solution of which, the experience of the English people furnishes no aid. Once more, then, we must consider the actual situation in this country to-day.

The Negro problem has been stated: What does justice to the Negro demand? Approaching our subject from this point of view, we may try to conclude:--

1st. What justice _does_ demand; and

2nd. What the Negro must do to get it.

What, to begin with, is the answer of the South to the former? It is familiar to us all and would seem to be the nearly unanimous voice of the Southern people. The Negro, they say, is ignorant, lazy and vicious. Slavery, so far as its effect on the slave is concerned, was a beneficent institution, raising him from his previous savagery to a plane of humble usefulness. There, however, his incurable inferiority destines him forever to remain. This, the South insists she has settled in wisdom and kindliness. The North, so runs her speech, misunderstanding the South and the Negro, unjustly forced on the Civil war, to compel her to change her domestic institutions. But that attempt, foredoomed to failure, has resulted in nothing more than the abolition of slavery, and a cruel loss of life and property, partly compensated for by the consequent revelation of her boundless resources of courage, loyalty and united resolve. Slavery, while a Southern institution, was not a bond of perfect union; but upon the platform of black inferiority and white domination, every Southern man has his foot squarely planted. Her answer, therefore, to all criticism is to point with pride to the solid South.

How often are we called upon to see with pain and wonder that opinions, theories, even the mind itself is shaped by actions. Nature, aiming at preservation of life, is quick to heal all possible wounds, to reconcile warring impulses, to gloss and beautify deformities, and even to conceal dangers and snares. She gives men language to justify their misdeeds, teaches them how to embalm their errors in the secretion of their intellects, and even preserves the lying epitaphs which they inscribe over the remains of their vanity and pride. To change an opinion, it is necessary commonly to change a course of action, and until the life of the South changes, there seems no reasonable expectation that her opinions will change. Disfranchisement is but a symptom of the diseased Southern body politic, and who can tell whether the surgeon's knife will not reach the sources of life itself in seeking for a cure.

Sufficient then to herself,--wholly insufficient, false, and cruel to us, is this answer. If there were but these two parties to the cause, there would be no need to consider it. There remains, however, the still hesitating, ever-divided public opinion of the North--now the judge in the Freedmen's case. It is fitting that in her court, our replication should be boldly made. There we proclaim that the South is not doing justice to colored men.

The Negroes, say Southern men, are ignorant, lazy, vicious,--a perpetual menace to the rule and order of white men. Is this believable? Did God so make the world that after three thousand years of progressive white civilization;--in a country where there are sixty millions of white men, entrenched in their possession of armies and navies, wealth, power and endless resources of trained intellect;--that nine millions of colored people, rich in nothing but their sufferings, threaten to put the bottom on top? And if chance rules the world, and ignorance, laziness and vice are as likely to prevail as knowledge, industry and virtue, we may as well believe that ignorance and laziness and vice underlie white civilization and supremacy. No, we may confidently answer: this is not believable. Either these nine millions of colored people are not ignorant, lazy and vicious, or there are no grounds for the fear that they can for an hour put into danger the continuance of white domination, even in the blackest portion of the black South.

There is indeed proof obtainable that they are neither ignorant, lazy and vicious, nor a menace to rule and order. If they were near neighbors of the brutes would the elaborate defensive preparations be necessary which the South continues feverishly to make? Do the savages of Africa enact disfranchising clauses to keep apes and monkeys out of their political affairs? If ignorance so submerges the black man, why does not the Massachusetts principle of protecting the ballot prevail in the South? Why is it necessary to require the voter to read, yes, and _interpret satisfactorily, any_ clause in the state constitution?[4] If sloth curses the Negro with unfruitfulness, why require property to the assessed value of $300? If the assessed value be two thirds of the real value, this means that nearly $500; if one third, then nearly $1000 is fixed as the minimum possession of the black voter. Does this precaution point to shiftlessness? If viciousness be indelibly stamped upon his nature, why not rely upon his disfranchisement for crime to eliminate the colored voters? Are the white juries not to be trusted to condemn the accused? Are the leased convicts not worth their cost of keeping? It has been more than once said that 90,000 of the 90,000 colored people in the District of Columbia are criminals. If the same proportion maintains elsewhere, what more is needed to accomplish the desired end?

[4] The requirement that the voter be able to read (or write) _and_
interpret satisfactorily, in the Virginia registration requirement
before Jan. 1, 1904, is an advance upon the earlier clauses, which
left the alternative. I am not sure but that it reappears in the
Maryland law not yet in operation. It is an interesting fact that
it was _Senator Daniels of Virginia_ who once called the attention
of the Senate to the injustice done the South by Senator Spooner's
assertion that voters were, without alternative, required to
interpret passages from the Constitutions.

Yet disfranchisement for ignorance, for thriftlessness, and vice all together are acknowledged to be insufficient, and resort must be had again to manipulation, juggling, and confessed dishonesty. Rev. Edgar Gardiner Murphy, Executive Secretary of the Southern Education Board, a distinguished witness, testifying against interest, says: "The instrument of discrimination has been found in the discretionary powers lodged in the board of registrars, by which worthy Negro men, fairly meeting every test of suffrage have been excluded from registration."(?) Where the fact is so freely admitted, proof seems wasted, yet abundant corroboration may easily be had[5].

[5] The following clipping from the Baltimore American, I cannot
refrain from reading:--

"In the recent election the democratic judges of election in many
of the counties proved that they were unable even to count ballots
properly marked, and when it came to putting a reasonable
interpretation on the intention of a voter they were either wholly
ignorant or wholly dishonest. It is perfectly safe to say that not
one-third of the democratic judges who served at the Maryland
election of last week could themselves give an intelligent
interpretation of any section in the Constitution. Many of them do
not even know what the Constitution is, and the man who suggested
that they would take it to be a new kind of drink did not overshoot
the mark. Fine professors of constitutional history these men would
make!"

The fact as well as the extent of disfranchisement is revealed by the statistical summaries:--

*STATISTICAL SUMMARIES*

_TABLE_ 1
----------------------------------------
ADULT MALE OR COLORED VOTING
POPULATION, 1900, ESTIMATED AT 1 IN
4.3.
----------------------------------------
Virginia 660,722 / 46,122.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
Nor. Car. 624,469 / 127,114.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
South Car. 782,321 / 152,860.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
Alabama 827,307 / 181,471.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
Mississippi 907,630 / 197,936.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
Louisiana 650,804 / 147,348.
4.3 =
----------------------------------------
Total 4,453,251.
----------------------------------------

_TABLE_ 2
------------------------------------------------------
CENSUS OF NEGROES BEFORE PASSAGE OF REVISED
CONSTITUTIONS.
------------------------------------------------------
Virginia 1900 115,865 (T.Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Nor. Car. " 133,081 "
------------------------------------------------------
South Car. 1892 13,384 "
------------------------------------------------------
Alabama 1900 55,512 Pres.
------------------------------------------------------
Mississippi 1888 30,096
------------------------------------------------------
Louisiana 1888 30,701
------------------------------------------------------

_TABLE_ 3
------------------------------------------------------
CENSUS OF NEGROES AFTER PASSAGE OF REVISED
CONSTITUTIONS.
------------------------------------------------------
Virginia 1904 47,880 (W. Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Nor. Car. " 82,442 "
------------------------------------------------------
So. Car. 1900 3,579 Pres. (T.)
------------------------------------------------------
So. Car. 1904 2,554 Pres. (W.
Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Alabama 1904 22,472 (W. Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Miss. 1900 5,753 Pres. (T.
Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Miss. 1904 3,189 Pres. (W.
Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Louisiana 1900 14,234 Pres. (T.
Al.)
------------------------------------------------------
Louisiana 1904 5,205 Pres. (W.
Al.)
------------------------------------------------------

_TABLE_ 4
----------------------------------------------------
REGISTRATION OF COLORED VOTERS. (Newspaper
estimate.)
----------------------------------------------------
State Literate _Registered_
----------------------------------------------------
Virginia equal 69,358
----------------------------------------------------
North Carolina 59,625 _"Less than
6,000"_
----------------------------------------------------
South Carolina 69,242
----------------------------------------------------
Alabama 73,474 _"Hardly
2,500"_
----------------------------------------------------
Mississippi 92,605
----------------------------------------------------
Louisiana 57,086 _"1,147"_
----------------------------------------------------

_TABLE_ 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------
REPUBLICAN VOTE IN THE SIX STATES; VOTE AFTER DISFRANCHISEMENT
SCORED. (World Almanac of 1904.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
YEAR VA. NORTH SOUTH ALA. MISS. LA.
CAR. CAR.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1872 93,468 94,783 72,290 90,272 82,175 59,975
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1876 76,093 108,419 92,081 68,230 52,605 75,315
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1880 83,639 115,874 58,071 56,178 34,854 38,016
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1884 139,356 125,068 21,733 59,144 43,509 46,347
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1888 150,438 134,784 13,736 57,197 30,096 30,701
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1892 113,217 100,846 13,384 9,197 1,406 26,563
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1900 115,865 133,081 3,579 55,512 5,753 14,234
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1904 47,880 82,442 2,554 22,472 3,189 5,205
--------------------------------------------------------------------

1872, 1876, Va., N.C., S.C., Ala. (Tribune Almanac of 1896.)
1872, Louisiana (World Almanac.)
1892, Louisiana (Republican and Populists.)
1892, N.C.; 1900, 1904 (Due to Populists.)

Every fresh barrier erected in the South simply publishes to the world the weakness and inefficiency of those already raised. Each time dishonest methods are newly justified, and violent declarations, applauded, fresh evidence is given that these Southern men cannot on its merits win their case. The policy of white domination is stripped to unblushing nakedness, and confident of the fear of those who remained for two hundred years enslaved, the South narrows the issue to one of physical courage, inviting the Negro to wrest from her the power, which stands between him and justice, freedom, happiness. _It is not then in the ignorance, laziness, and vice of the Negro, that the white South trusts, for the continuance of her policy, but in his defencelessness._

_To these Southern men, we can make but one reply. Unmistakably our courage is the issue._ But before considering how best to treat their sinister challenge, let us answer to the Republican party the question: What does justice to the Negro demand? Our reply is simple,--the fulfillment of the promise, which was treasured up in the hearts of four million men as they passed through the doors of slavery into the light of freedom;--the promise, which they have left to their children as their one priceless inheritance: "The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude and of justice, and must be maintained"--this was the promise of the Republican party in 1868. The freedman appeals to the creator of his political rights, as Tennyson to the Creator of his being:--

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man, he _knows_ not why;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And Thou hast made him,--Thou art just.

Is it then fair to leave to us the vindication of the Reconstruction policy against men of the South, the North and even influential members of the party's own councils? Must we meet the charge that the Republican party was moved by revenge and folly, and prove that there was no other way to secure the foundation of freedom, which hundreds of thousands had died to win? Were those terrible years of death a mere night over the gaming table, with two haggard players, 'breaking even' at dawn? Is it left to us to rescue from their own sons the fame of the heroes of the war against slavery and restore the honorable inscriptions recorded on their tombs? When men talk of 'the greatest error of Reconstruction,' has the murder of Lincoln no claim to the place? Does not John Wilkes Booth better merit derisive canonizing than "Saint" John Brown? If it was irony for the "Reconstruction" legislatures to impose heavy taxes upon a people who had just emerged from a ruinous war and by bonded indebtedness extend the obligation to future generations, was it not also irony to punish and re-enslave by vagrancy laws the men who without an acre or a dollar were now _called_ free?

And if it _was_ hate, and revenge, and folly, which brought about the 'War Amendments,' can they be honorably withdrawn now? Is there no doctrine in law, which forbids one's renouncing an act after he has profited by it? But could the elections have been won and the policies maintained without the aid of the colored voter? Is there need of a statute of limitations to stop a political party from withdrawing the promises upon which it has encouraged millions of trusting people to build for forty years? Can it be honestly claimed that three-fourths of the States of the Union gave the ballot to the slave just out of the slave pen, with the implied condition that if he failed to prove himself able from the outset to resist temptation to childish indulgence and childish dishonesty, seduced as he was by the Northern men whom gratitude bade him trust and follow, he should lose it forever? Is this the Eden where we met our "fall?" A sober Anglo-Saxon definition of justice is given by Sidgwick: "Justice is realized (1) in the observance of law, and contracts, and definite understandings, and in the enforcement of such penalties for the violation of these as have been legally determined and announced; and (2) in the fulfilment of natural and normal expectations." That the nation's laws will be upheld is the first requirement of justice.[6]

[6] Here is an instance of a President's devotion to existing laws:
*With the Confederate government fully installed two weeks
before*,--Lincoln said in his inaugural address, that "he had no
purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of
slavery." Is a manual needed in the United States to tell for what
purposes and under what circumstances the law will be enforced?

But yet again are we brought back to the ignorance, shiftlessness and criminality of the Negro. Their fathers, so say these wiser Northern sons, could not know of these evils, which to them have been revealed. No, they could not: had their lives been spared till now there had been no such evils to reveal. Under freedom's blaze ignorance was sucked up as the stagnant waters from a pool. With nearly the entire number of slaves illiterate, with no schools yet built, and only those large hearted teachers to face the enormous educational work whose ministrations to the needy were their only pay, more was done in the years just after the liberation of the slaves, to remove, their ignorance, than twenty-five thousand teachers in hundreds of schools have done in the last decade since.[7] Progress in earning and saving corresponded. And there was little increase of crime. A few years more of the sunlight and who doubts that these charges could never have been brought against us! And by whom are we charged with being criminal? Surely not by the South?

[7] Per cent. of illiteracy.

Colored population in 1860 4,441,830.

Of this about 9 per cent. (488,070) was free--perhaps 1/2 of this
was literate, i.e., about 5 per cent. of the whole.

Equal 95 per cent. or higher.

Colored population above 10 years in 1870 equal whole population,
4,880,009, less 28.7 per cent. equals under 10 leaving 3,464,806.
Above 10, unable to write, 2,789,689.

Equal 80 per cent.

Colored population above 10 years in 1880 4,601,207. Above 10,
unable to write, 3,220,878.

Equal 70 per cent.

Colored population above 10 years in 1890 5,328,972. Above 10,
unable to write, 3,042,668.

Equal 57.1 per cent.

Colored population above 10 years in 1900 6,415,581. Above 10,
unable to write, 2,853,194.

Equal 44.5 per cent.