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diff --git a/31333.txt b/31333.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5183d42 --- /dev/null +++ b/31333.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1634 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Disfranchisement of the Negro, by John L. Love + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Disfranchisement of the Negro + The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 + +Author: John L. Love + +Release Date: February 21, 2010 [EBook #31333] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE NEGRO *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Stephanie Eason, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + + OCCASIONAL PAPERS No. 6. + + The American Negro Academy. + + Rev. ALEXANDER CRUMMELL, Founder. + + + The Disfranchisement + of the Negro. + + By JOHN L. LOVE. + + + Price 15 cents. + + WASHINGTON, D. C. + Published by the Academy, + 1899. + + + + +The Disfranchisement of the Negro. + + "A Constitution formed so as to enable a party to overrule its very + government, and to overpower the people too, answers the purpose + neither of government nor of freedom"--Edmund Burke. + + +The assault, under the forms of law, which is being made upon the +political rights of the Negro is the symptom of an animus which has its +roots imbedded in the past. It does not mark a revival, but rather the +supreme desperate effort of the spirit of tyranny to compass the +political subjection and consequent social degradation of the black man. +Its provocation does not consist in any abnormal or perilous condition +in southern communities arising from a numerical preponderance of +Negroes. It is not made to meet a merely temporary emergency with the +intent to return to the principles of republican government upon the +advent of intelligence and wealth to the Negro. Indeed, the very intent +and purpose of the assault is to prevent such an advent, in so far as +human ingenuity and tyrannical violence can do so. + +It can not find its justification in a necessity of averting by radical +measures any imagined perils to social order which might arise from the +political domination of ignorance; for the spirit which prompts the +assault has ever fostered ignorance and endeavored to perpetuate it. In +fact, the assault is so iniquitous in its conception and is being +executed with such wicked and violent disregard of political morals and +human rights, as by comparison to render almost beneficent the +realization of the perils which the imagination of the assailants +pretends to fancy. + +There may be those who see in this assault nothing more than a supreme +effort of a benign civilization to save itself from utter ruin. It is, +however, to be borne in mind that the apostles of this civilization +which is of a peculiarly local type, have ever asserted that its +maintenance and future glory are inseparably connected with the +subjection of the Negro. Always they have spoken the language of +tyranny, which, in spite of its embellishments and jugglings, amounts to +this: the social well-being and political privileges of the Negro are +inconsistent with the economic interests and political ambitions of a +few southern white men. Into this language all of the feigned social +perils and political nightmares of southern planters and politicians +easily resolve themselves. + +There may be those who indulge the hope that the final triumph of this +assault will have a salutary effect upon the social status of the Negro. +Their hope is due in no small measure to their ignorance of the history +of the character, spirit, and dominant purpose of the assailants. That +history furnishes the best key to an understanding of the present +assault upon the political rights of the Negro. + +Forty years ago the slave power plunged this nation into war for the +avowed purpose of perpetuating Negro slavery. Alexander Stevens, on his +return from the convention which had erected the Southern Confederacy, +addressing a large assembly at Savannah, uttered the following +significant words: + + "The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating + questions relating to our peculiar institution--African slavery as + it exists among us--_the proper_ status of the Negro in our form of + civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and + the present revolution." + +Referring to the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and the leading statesmen at +the time of the formation of the Federal Constitution, that Negro +Slavery was in violation of the laws of Nature, wrong in "principle, +socially, morally and politically," he continued thus: + +"Those ideas were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption +of the equality of races. Our constitution (the Confederate +Constitution,) is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas. Its +foundations are laid, its corner stone rests upon the great truth that +the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to +the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."[1] + +It has become the rule to frown upon any and all references to the +circumstances and causes that produced the Civil War. This is true +especially of the men and women who upheld the cause of the Union as +against Secession. Naturally magnanimous, they have been at great pains +to avoid in their public utterances any references to the "late +unpleasantness" which might in any way wound the sensibilities of the +excessively sensitive South. Certainly, nothing can be more sincerely +desired than the utter eradication of the passions and animosities that +were evoked by armed conflict. But to ignore the fundamental cause and +motive which led the South to precipitate the war, with a view to +seeming not to be influenced by sectional prejudices is pushing +magnanimity to the verge of vapid sentimentality--a folly in which the +South, in so far as its attitude toward the Negro is concerned, has in +no sense shared. + +The doctrine of "the proper status of the Negro," is as consistently +maintained by the South in eighteen hundred and ninety-nine as in +eighteen hundred and sixty, when it was made the shibboleth of the +Slavery Party and the tocsin of war; and there can be no proper +consideration of our present Negro Problem without regard to this +historical doctrine. + +The Southern Confederacy is now a political myth. In its attempt to make +Negro Slavery its corner stone, it carved the gravestones of more than a +million men. Upon the proclamation of peace and universal freedom, the +nation's joy was without bounds. In the intense enthusiasm of the moment +over the "new birth of freedom," and the overthrow of the slave power, +the doctrine of the "proper status of the Negro" seemed to be eternally +repudiated and the agitations relating to it seemed indeed "forever +settled." But in the throes of its joy, there suddenly dawned upon the +nation the fact that the problems pertaining to the Negro had, because +of freedom, become more stupendous than even the question of slavery had +been. Henceforth the Negro Problem was to test severely the integrity of +republican principles. + +This was the critical period of the history of the Negro in America. +Within almost the twinkling of an eye, by an exigency of one of the +world's greatest wars, his status had been suddenly changed. The slave +became a free man by the dispensation of Providence and against the will +of his master. + +A free man, yet penniless and homeless. A man of toil, but one whose own +and whose ancestral toil had created a material and social grandeur +which now mocked at his poverty and arrogantly denied him a share in its +blessings. A free man, but ignorant, the greatest curse imposed by his +former status which had contributed to the enlightenment of others. A +freeman, but helpless in the face of an impending persecution. He, whose +labor had contributed to the comfort and social happiness of +others,--who, while they were testing on scores of battle fields their +power to rob him of his freedom, was caring for and protecting their +wives and daughters and furnishing the sinews of the unholy war--was now +at the mercy of those who had gone forth to battle with the cry that, +"slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal +condition." + +The Thirteenth Amendment became the law of the land through the travail +of war. But the war had sapped the Nation's strength, had cost nearly a +million lives and created a debt of three billions. Weary of strife and +vexation, the nation was fain to leave the settlement of the problems, +to which the new status of the Negro had given rise, to those among whom +he was to live, i.e., to his former masters. + +This was indeed a critical period in the history of the Negro race in +the United States and the lessons of this period are exceedingly +important in the light of the present attack upon the political rights +of the black man. + +In recent discussions of the merits and wisdom of Negro suffrage, this +period is as a rule strangely overlooked. The assertion so commonly +made, that the conferring of the right to vote upon the Negro was a +colossal blunder, evinces the extent to which this period has been +ignored by those who make it, or else their remarkable ignorance of the +history of Negro suffrage. Political prejudices and the blind zeal and +opportunism of those who have discovered some "sure cure," for the +Negro's ills have aided much in the work of discrediting Negro suffrage. +Some have ignored the facts to such an extent as to assert that Negro +suffrage was the result of vindictiveness on the part of the +Northerners, who wished both to humiliate the South and to perpetuate +the power of the Republican Party. The trouble with this assertion is +that it imputes too much to Northern sagacity. What the nation, through +the agency of the Republican party, did was to enact the Thirteenth +Amendment and thus to make President Lincoln's conditional proclamation +of freedom an unconditioned part of the organic law. The extent of its +revenge was to insist upon the incorporation of this principle of +freedom into the old Slave Constitutions of the South. This was the +terms of surrender and having accepted this, the South was left alone +(the boon it has always craved) with full power to deal with the Negro +as tenderly as it saw fit. The Negro was left a "sojourner on +sufferance" in the great republic which he had assisted in saving, and +to the sweet charity of those who had sought to destroy it for the +purpose of binding him with unbreakable chains. + +By the acceptance of the terms imposed, the rebellious states placed +themselves in a position of great responsibility and great opportunity. +The responsibility of the old South, the South of slavery and rebellion, +was to properly adjust itself to the new conditions of freedom and +inseparable union, its opportunity was to prove to the nation the claim +it so often and so boastfully makes that it is the Negro's best friend +and is disposed to treat him fairly. + +Did the South rise to its opportunity? Did it treat liberally and kindly +those freedmen who as slaves had created its material wealth and many of +whom as soldiers had with the irony of fate helped to keep it from +separating from the Union of which it is now proud of being an integral +part? Did it hold out to them the promise of gradual citizenship, and, +in order that this citizenship should be intelligent, establish schools +for their education? Was it jealous or in any way solicitous about the +economic and industrial freedom of these people? In its bearing upon the +present disfranchising enactments of the South, the answer to these +questions is important. + +Unaccustomed to free schools, trained to despise and punish the +intellectual aspirations of the slave, these recently rebellious states +not only refused to educate the freedmen, but actually burned many +schools that were built by men and women of the North, who in obedience +to genuine Christian charity followed in the wake of the armies of +freedom. Then as now, it proceeded to fix the Negro's status by hostile +legislation in the shape of Black codes. These laws reveal the +deliberate purpose of the South to reduce the freedmen to a state of +serfdom more bitter and degrading than slavery had been, and violated +the most sacred of the inherent rights of human nature. + +The civilized state of Alabama, which is now preparing to disfranchise +the Negro, declared that "stubborn and refractory servants, and servants +who loiter away their time," were to be treated as vagrants, fined fifty +dollars and "in default of payment might be hired out at public auction +for a period of six months."[2] Thus the Thirteenth Amendment did not +destroy the auction block. + +Florida declared that "it shall not be lawful for any Negro or person of +color to own, use, or keep any bowie knife, dirk, sword or fire arms or +ammunition of any kind" without license, to be granted only upon the +recommendation of two "respectable" white men. For violating this law +the Negro was to stand in the pillory for one hour and then be whipped +with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back.[3] South Carolina, always bold +to reveal its purpose, declared that "no person of color shall pursue +the practice, art, trade or business of an artisan, mechanic, shopkeeper +or any other employment besides that of husbandry or that of a servant +under contract for labor"[4] without a license, which was good for one +year only; and she supplemented this with the following: + + "That a person of color, who is in the employment of a master + engaged in husbandry, shall not have the license to sell any corn, + rice, peas, wheat or other grain, any flour, cotton, fodder, hay, + bacon, fresh meat of any kind or any other product of a farm, + without written permission of such master."[5] + +Louisiana, which has recently outlawed the Negro by Constitutional +enactment, declared: + + "Every adult freedman or woman shall furnish themselves with a + comfortable home and visible means of support _within twenty days_ + after the passage of this act!"[6] + +Failing to do so, such persons were to be hired out at public auction +for the rest of the year. + +Let it be borne in mind that these laws were not enactments of a distant +and forgotten past. They were the deliberate enactments of that period +for the purpose of nullifying the Thirteenth Amendment. + +Of this period Mr. Justice Miller in rendering the decision in the +Slaughter House Cases said: + + "The process of restoring to their proper relations with the + Federal Government and with the other states those which had sided + with the rebellion, undertaken under the proclamation of President + Johnson in 1865, and before the assembling of Congress, developed + the fact that, notwithstanding the formal recognition by those + states of the abolition of slavery, the condition of the slave race + would, without further protection of the Federal Government, be + almost as bad as it was before. Among the first acts of legislation + adopted by several of the states in the legislative bodies which + claimed to be in their normal relations with the Federal + Government, were laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous + disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit + of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom + was of little value, while they had lost their protection which + they had received from their former owners from motives both of + interest and humanity."[7] + +This is what happened to the Negro when the South was left alone to deal +with him and when he was voteless. + +James G. Blaine truly said that: + + "Without the right of citizenship his freedom could be maintained + only in name, and without the elective franchise his citizenship + would have no legitimate and no authoritative protection." + +Fortunately for the Negro and for the continuance of free institutions +in the South, the nation slowly perceived this truth, but not until a +long and bitter struggle had been carried on by the friends of freedom +for manhood suffrage and human rights. These infamous, repressive and +enslaving laws finally aroused the nation's sense of justice and brought +it to the realization of the undeniable truth that in a free government +"the strong keen sword by which a freeman can protect all other rights +and give value to all other privileges is the elective franchise." + +Yet in the full consciousness of this truth, attested beyond cavil by +the inhuman subjection of the Negro to the arrogant and oppressive will +of those who held peculiar notions about his "proper status," the +Federal Government hesitated to go the full length of its duty. It +stopped midway. The war seemed not to have convinced it of the futility +and fatality of compromising with the South. The Fourteenth Amendment +was adopted. The Negro was thereby given the right which his Southern +guardians proudly refused him--the right of citizenship--but not the +right which is alone the guarantee of the privileges of citizenship--the +right to a voice in the government of which he was declared a citizen. +The power of conferring suffrage limited or universal, was left as the +special privilege of the South. But the South proceeded to nullify the +Fourteenth Amendment as it had nullified the Thirteenth and sent her +captains of rebellion to make the nation's laws. + +Impelled by the motive of self preservation, by the sheer necessity of +saving itself from those who would have destroyed it, and of saving to +the freedmen the simple inherent right of self-ownership, the nation was +forced to confer upon the Negro the right to vote by the adoption of the +Fifteenth Amendment. This step it is now popular to characterize as a +blunder or as an act of revenge designed to humiliate the South. If it +was, then the preservation of the Union and the abolition of slavery are +nameless crimes. + +The period of Reconstruction has served as the text for discrediting +Negro Suffrage and is always the apt illustration that gives point to +the argument of those who attempt to prove the incapacity of the Negro +to exercise the right of suffrage. There is no doubt that the effort to +mould public sentiment away from Negro Suffrage has been generally +successful and this success has been achieved very largely through +misrepresentation in regard to the facts of Reconstruction. The great +body of active citizens have grown into full citizenship since the +Reconstruction epoch, are consequently ignorant of its true history and +quite satisfied to receive the information concerning it from those +whose interest and delight it is to resort to misrepresentation. + +It is not my purpose to enter into a defense of Reconstruction, but +merely to call attention to the following facts: + +(1) The attempt to reconstruct the rebellious states along lines of +Republican principles failed until the Negro was given the right to +vote. Those who had participated in the War of the Rebellion and to whom +the opportunity had been given to return to normal relations with the +Federal Government without the interference of the Negro, failed signally +and deliberately to do so in an acceptable manner. Negro Suffrage was +therefore an essential and beneficent factor in the work of +reconstruction.[8] + +(2) The accepted history of that period has been written by those who +rode into power by murder and intimidation and to whose interest it is +to paint the history of reconstruction so dark as to hide their own +flagrant crimes. Their method of history writing has been that of +suppression and distortion of facts. + +(3) The true history of that period reveals some things that place Negro +Suffrage in a remarkably creditable light. + +The statement has recently been made that "the reconstruction regime in +the South worked lasting injury to the colored race."[9] Place this +statement in juxtaposition with a few of the things that were really +done by these newly enfranchised people who were practicing their first +lessons in the science of government. + +Judge Albion W. Tourgee has stated it thus: + + "They obeyed the Constitution of the United States, and annulled + the bonds of states, counties, and cities which had been issued to + carry on the war of rebellion and maintain armies in the field + against the Union. They instituted a public school system in a + realm where public schools had been unknown. They opened the ballot + box and jury box to thousands of white men who had been debarred + from them by a lack of earthly possessions. They introduced home + rule into the South. They abolished the whipping post, the branding + iron, the stocks and other barbarous forms of punishment which had + up to that time prevailed. They reduced capital felonies from about + twenty to two or three. In an age of extravagance they were + extravagant in the sums appropriated for public works. In all of + that time no man's rights of person were invaded under the forms of + law. Every Democrat's life, home, fireside and business were safe. + No man obstructed any white man's way to the ballot box, interfered + with his freedom of speech or boycotted him on account of his + political faith."[10] + +This is the record which it is said "has worked lasting injury to the +colored race." If the true history of this period proves anything it is +this, namely, that the only republican government in fact as well as in +form that has ever existed in the South was when the Negro, though a +mere tyro in the art of government, was a controlling factor in southern +politics. His "lasting injury" consists in the fact that he planted "the +seeds of all the New South's prosperity." + +The Southern politicians, who in their desperation to perpetuate Negro +Slavery created a national debt of more than three billions and stained +every vale and hillside with the blood of freemen, point with ineffable +horror at the extravagant financial legislation of the Reconstruction +period. It may be that this much paraded extravagance amounts to more +than the fiction of distorted facts; but, in view of the audacious +corruption of the era which preceded it, and the gigantic peculations of +that which has followed, the financial profligacy of Reconstruction may +not have been so bad after all. + +Replying to a characteristic speech of Senator Tillman delivered in the +recent South Carolina Constitutional Convention, in which he arraigned +the financial legislation of Reconstruction in that State Mr. Thomas E. +Miller, one of the six Negro members of the convention, said: + + "The gentleman from Edgefield (Mr. Tillman) speaks of the piling up + of the State debt; of jobbery and peculation during the period + between 1869 and 1873 in South Carolina, but he has not found voice + eloquent enough, nor pen exact enough to mention those imperishable + gifts bestowed upon South Carolina between 1873 and 1876 by Negro + legislators--the laws relative to finance, the building of penal + and charitable institutions, and, greatest of all, the + establishment of the public school system. Starting as infants in + legislation in 1869, many wise measures were not thought of, many + injudicious acts were passed. But in the administration of affairs + for the next four years, having learned by experience the result of + bad acts, we immediately passed reformatory laws touching every + department of state, county, municipal and town governments. These + enactments are today upon the statute books of South Carolina. They + stand as living witnesses of the Negro's fitness to vote and + legislate upon the rights of mankind. + + "When we came into power town governments could lend the credit of + their respective towns to secure funds at any rate of interest that + the council saw fit to pay. Some of the towns paid as high as 20 + per cent. We passed an act prohibiting town governments from + pledging the credit of their hamlets for money bearing a greater + rate of interest than 5 per cent. + + "Up to 1874, inclusive, the State Treasurer had the power to pay + out State funds as he pleased. He could elect whether he would pay + out the funds on appropriations that would place the money in the + hands of the peculators, or would apply them to appropriations that + were honest and necessary. We saw the evil of this and passed an + act making specific levies and collections of taxes for specific + appropriations. + + "Another source of profligacy in the expenditure of funds was the + law that provided for and empowered the levying and collecting of + special taxes by school districts, in the name of the schools. We + saw its evil and by a constitutional amendment provided that there + should only be levied and collected annually a tax of two mills for + school purposes, and took away from the school districts the power + to levy and to collect taxes of any kind. By this act we cured the + evils that had been inflicted upon us in the name of the schools, + settled the public school question for all time to come, and + established the system upon an honest, financial basis. + + "Next, we learned during the period from 1869 to 1874, inclusive, + that what was denominated the floating indebtedness, covering the + printing schemes and other indefinite expenditures, amounted to + nearly $2,000,000. A conference was called of the leading Negro + representatives in the two houses together with the State + Treasurer, also a Negro. After this conference we passed an act for + the purpose of ascertaining the bona fide floating debt and found + that it did not amount to more than $250,000 for the four years; we + created a commission to sift that indebtedness and to scale it. + Hence when the Democratic party came into power they found the + floating debt covering the legislative and all other expenditures, + fixed at the certain sum of $250,000. This same class of Negro + legislators led by the State Treasurer, Mr. F. L. Cardoza, knowing + that there were millions of fraudulent bonds charged against the + credit of the state, passed another act to ascertain the true + bonded indebtedness, and to provide for its settlement. Under this + law, at one sweep, those entrusted with the power to do so, through + Negro legislators, stamped six millions of bonds, denominated as + conversion bonds, "fraudulent." The commission did not finish its + work before 1876. In that year, when the Hampton government came + into power, there were still to be examined into and settled under + the terms of the act passed by us providing for the legitimate + bonded indebtedness of the state, a little over two and a half + million dollars worth of bonds and coupons which had not been + passed upon. + + "Governor Hampton, General Hagood, Judge Simonton, Judge Wallace + and in fact, all of the conservative thinking Democrats aligned + themselves under the provision enacted by us for the certain and + final settlement of the bonded indebtedness and appealed to their + Democratic legislators to stand by the Republican legislation on + the subject and to confirm it. A faction in the Democratic party + obtained a majority of the Democrats in the legislature against + settling the question and they endeavored to open up anew the whole + subject of the state debt. We had a little over thirty members in + the house and enough Republican senators to sustain the Hampton + conservative faction and to stand up for honest finance, or by our + votes place the debt question of the old state into the hands of + the plunderers and peculators. We were appealed to by General + Hagood, through me, and my answer to him was in these words: + 'General, our people have learned the difference between profligate + and honest legislation. We have passed acts of financial reform, + and with the assistance of God when the vote shall have been taken, + you will be able to record for the thirty odd Negroes, slandered + though they have been through the press, that they voted solidly + with you all for honest legislation and the preservation of the + credit of the state.' The thirty odd Negroes in the legislature and + their senators, by their votes did settle the debt question and + saved the state $13,000,000. We were eight years in power. We had + built school houses, established charitable institutions, built and + maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of + the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the jails and court houses, rebuilt the + bridges and re-established the ferries. In short, we had + reconstructed the state and placed it upon the road to prosperity + and, at the same time, by our acts of financial reform transmitted + to the Hampton Government an indebtedness not greater by more than + $2,500,000 than was the bonded debt of the State in 1868, before + the Republican Negroes and their white allies came into power." + +With the disgraceful dicker of 1877, this era closed, and with it passed +away for a time, whose limit has not yet been fixed, whatever there has +been, of republican government in the South. How the overthrow of +Reconstruction government was accomplished is well-known. The +significance of its overthrow is that it marked the arrogant reassertion +of the malignant and desperate purpose of the southern oligarchy, +trained in the absolutism of slave mastery, to despoil the Negro of the +rights of citizenship, and to reduce him to a state of serfdom. + +In the preparation for the execution of this infamous purpose, they +attempted and succeeded in accomplishing what does great credit to the +sheer audacity of southern political leadership. By sublime +dissimulation they hoodwinked the other sections of the country in +regard to the South's attitude to the Negro. Their first maneuver was +to give the Negro a bad reputation and denounce as mischievous meddlers +those who insisted that he be dealt with justly. The Southern oligarchy +put forward its youngest and best men. Its first point of attack was +Massachusetts; and thither went Grady and Gordon and Watterson who with +persuasive accent plead the cause of the "New South." With charming +recklessness of statement, they proclaimed the era of sectional +fraternity and with consummate cunning set forth in the next breath to +eastern capitalists the industrial possibilities of the South. Gradually +they reached the climax of their mission, to wit: Leave the Negro to us: +we are his friends, his natural guardians: we know him better than you +do, and can more wisely fix his status in our social scheme. Then the +old, old story was repeated with endless refrain, of the Negro's +ignorance, criminal tendencies (fully attested by timely news dispatches +from the South), of his inferiority, and of the menace he is to +Anglo-Saxon domination. + +Thus while the sons of slave masters were poisoning the minds of the +north and west, the slave drivers were at home perfecting the conspiracy +against Negro citizenship. + +The year 1890 witnessed the beginning of the execution of this +conspiracy which promises to continue until the Negro is divested of +every right which is worth the having. In 1890 a minority of the people +of the state of Mississippi arrogated to themselves the right to despoil +the majority of the citizens of that state of the rights of free men by +nullifying the Fifteenth Amendment. + + +II + +Before considering the new constitutions of the States of Mississippi, +South Carolina and Louisiana, and the decisions of courts respecting +them, I have deemed it proper to review the history of Negro Suffrage +and to indicate the unvarying attitude of the ruling classes of the +South towards it. In the light of this history, let us now briefly +examine these recent enactments in their relation to the political +rights of the Negro. + +It is no secret that the avowed purpose of the framers of these +instruments was to deprive the Negro of the right to vote. Their purpose +is not more startling than is the defiance with which they have hurled +it from the housetops. This purpose they claim to have accomplished by +taking advantage of the ignorance and poverty of the Negro; but the most +cursory glance at these enactments will convince any one that neither +intelligence nor wealth constitutes the basis of electoral qualification +under them, while the confessions of the framers of them as well as +their operation proves that neither ignorance nor poverty serves to +disqualify. + +In Mississippi a Negro may be as rich as Dives and as wise as Solomon +and yet he may not be able to satisfy an ignorant and partisan +registration officer that he is qualified to be an elector; while a +white man may be as poor as Lazarus and may not possess the intellectual +outfit of a Hottentot and yet he will experience no difficulty in +convincing the same individual that he is qualified to exercise all the +rights and privileges of that class whose "destiny it is to dominate." +This is the sort of educational qualifications these great +constitutional documents prescribe! + +How to disfranchise the Negro by an educational test without at the same +time disfranchising a very large number of white men, was at first a +problem that presented many difficulties to the framers of the +Mississippi document. Such a problem, however, cannot long remain a +difficult one to men who are masters of the art of legalizing fraud. + +That the illiterate white vote might not, by the play of accident, +become eliminated by an educational test, it was provided that that part +of the constitution which prescribes it, was not to go into operation +until one year after the adoption of the constitution. Before the +expiration of that time another standard of qualification was provided +and all who qualified under it were not to be affected by the subsequent +operation of the educational test. + +This latter provision is as follows, being section 241 of Article 12 of +the constitution of Mississippi, defining who are electors: + + "Every male inhabitant of the state, except idiots, insane persons, + and Indians not taxed, who is a citizen of the United States, + twenty-one years of age and upwards, who has resided in the state + two years, and one year in the election district * * * in which he + offers to vote and who is duly registered as provided in this + article, and who has never been convicted of bribery, burglary, + theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, + perjury, embezzlement, or bigamy, and who has paid on or before the + first day of February of the year in which he offers to vote, all + taxes which may have been legally required of him and who shall + produce to the officer holding the election satisfactory evidence + that he has paid his taxes." + +Under this section of the Mississippi constitution, the white population +of that state qualified as electors. But to prevent the Negroes from +qualifying, section 242 of Article 12, further provides that persons +offering to register shall take the following oath: + + "I do solemnly swear that I am twenty one years old and that I will + have resided in the state two years and (this) election district + for one year preceding the ensuing election, and am now in good + faith a resident of the same, and that I am not disqualified from + voting by reason of having been convicted of any of the crimes + mentioned in the constitution of this state as a disqualification + to be an elector, that I will truly answer _all questions + propounded to me concerning my antecedents so far as they relate to + my right to vote_ and also as to _my residence before my citizenship + in this district_, that I will support the constitution of the + United States and of the state of Mississippi and will bear true + faith and allegiance to the same--so help me God. + + Any willful and corrupt false statement in said affidavit or in + answer to any material question propounded as herein authorized + shall be perjury." + +In the foregoing provisions attention is called to the following: + +(1) The crimes mentioned as disqualifying from voting are such as it is +always easy, when desirable, to convict the Negro of committing. Under +the present method of administering justice in the states where these +disfranchising constitutions operate, the Negro has neither any +guarantee of a fair and impartial trial nor any protection against +malicious prosecution or false accusations when it is convenient to +convict him. + +(2) The penalty for not paying taxes almost a year before election day +is a disqualification from voting. But this of course is not the sole +penalty. Whether he is a qualified elector or not, every man must in the +case of real property pay his taxes, or suffer the loss of his property, +and certainly no man, not even the poorest of the Negroes and poor +whites, can escape the obligation of the poll tax by a mere forfeiture +of his right to vote.[11] Thus the penalty for not paying taxes is +twofold in so far as the Negro is concerned. The poor white man may or +may not experience any difficulty about producing "to the officer +holding the election satisfactory evidence that he has paid his taxes." + +(3) The Negro who may desire to vote must answer under oath not certain +specific interrogatories concerning his antecedents and former places of +residence, but to "truly answer all questions propounded" to him, with +the understanding that the slightest mistake will be construed as a +corrupt and willful false statement exposing him to prosecution for +perjury, thus rendering him everlastingly disqualified to vote. + +When, under the foregoing provision the white male inhabitants of the +state became qualified electors, the following provision, being section +244 of article 12 of the constitution of Mississippi, went into +operation: + + "On and after the first day of January, 1892, every elector in + addition to the foregoing qualifications, shall be able to read any + section of the constitution of this state; or shall be able to + understand the same when read to him, or give a reasonable + interpretation thereof." + +This section contains the so-called educational test, and the elector's +qualifications under it are determined by a registration officer whose +discretion is as limitless as his prejudices. The registration officers +of South Carolina acting under a similar provision of the constitution +of that state required the Negroes who offered themselves for +registration to understand and explain section 4 of article 5 of the +constitution of South Carolina, which is as follows: + + "The supreme courts shall have power to issue writs or orders of + injunctions, mandamus, quo warranto, prohibition, certiorari, + habeas corpus, and other original and remedial writs, etc." + +Fearing apparently that these provisions of the constitution might not +prove a sufficient barrier to the Negro's intellect and cunning, the +legislature of Mississippi has gone the full length of the power granted +it, in its efforts to keep the Negro from voting. Section 3643 of the +code of 1892 of that state, which regulates the appointment of managers +of elections, contains this remarkably clever provision: + + "The Commissions shall appoint three persons to be managers of + election, who shall not be of the same political party, _if + suitable persons of different political parties can be had in the + district_." + +Imagine commissioners of election of the Mississippi type regarding a +Negro, or a white man known to be favorable to Negro suffrage, as a +"suitable person!" + +One would suppose that the elector having successfully passed the ordeal +of the registration officer would be allowed smooth sailing during the +remainder of the voyage to the polls. But no; having passed Scylla, he +must encounter Charybdis at the very brink of the ballot box; for +section 3644 of the above mentioned Code provides that any of the +managers of election + + "May examine on oath any person duly registered and offering to + vote touching his qualifications as an elector." + +The effect of the constitution of Mississippi is to set up a standard of +qualification of a much higher intellectual scale than that of any of +the most enlightened states in the Union and to deprive a hundred and +eighty thousand citizens of the elective franchise previously enjoyed by +them. + +The attempt is often made by southern politicians of the dominant class +to justify the Mississippi plan of disfranchisement by pointing to the +fact that Massachusetts, a northern state, has provided for a qualified +suffrage by the adoption of an educational test. But compared with the +Mississippi provision that of Massachusetts is as modest and simple as +the average Mississippi school house. + +Amendment XX to the Massachusetts Constitution is as follows: + + "No person shall have the right to vote, or be eligible to office + under the constitution of this commonwealth, who shall not be able + to read the constitution in the English language, and write his + name. _Provided however_, that the provisions of this amendment + shall not apply to any person prevented by physical disability from + complying with its requisition, _Nor to any person, who now has the + right to vote_, nor to any person who shall be sixty years of age + or upwards at the time this amendment shall take effect." + +Thus Massachusetts requires that those wishing to exercise the elective +franchise in the future must be able merely to read the English +language; and expends annually more than four dollars per capita to +educate them; while Mississippi requires, not only future electors, but +those who have previously exercised the right to vote to give "_a +reasonable interpretation_" to the satisfaction of a registration +officer, and expends annually less than one dollar per capita for +education! + +Here it may be well to state that, although the idea of a qualified +suffrage grew out of the desire and the necessity to prepare the foreign +born element of our population, aliens to our institutions and language, +for an intelligent exercise of the ballot, the Negro does not make +objection or complaint to a just and fair educational test of his +fitness to exercise the right of suffrage. Absolutely loyal to +republical institutions, he is willing to go as far as any in the matter +of fairly and justly protecting the ballot from abuses that grow out of +ignorance. + +The Constitution of Mississippi has served as the pattern for the +disfranchising enactments of South Carolina and Louisiana. The main +provision in the South Carolina Constitution regulating suffrage is as +follows: + + "Up to January 1, 1898, all male persons of voting age applying for + registration, who can read any section of this constitution + submitted to them, _or understand and explain it_ when read to them + by the registration officer, shall be entitled to registration and + become electors." + +It will be observed that the understanding and interpreting clause of +the foregoing operates the reverse of that of the Constitution of +Mississippi. The South Carolina provision was limited to cease after +January 1, 1898, while that of Mississippi was limited to begin January +1, 1892 and to continue thereafter without ceasing. + +Subdivision (d) of the above mentioned section of the South Carolina +Constitution provides as follows: + + "Any person who shall apply for registration after January 1, 1898, + if otherwise qualified, shall be registered: _Provided_ that he can + both read and write any section of the constitution submitted to + him by the registration officer or can show that he owns and has + paid taxes collectible during the previous year on property in this + state assessed at three hundred dollars ($300) or more." + +Subdivision (c) of the South Carolina law effected the disfranchisement +of more than one hundred thousand electors who had passed the legal age +of attending school. But for this fact, the provision of subdivision (d) +if fairly applied could meet with no objection. However, it cannot be +absolutely fair as long as South Carolina expends less money per capita +in the education of its Negro population than in the education of its +white population. The report of the Superintendent of Education of South +Carolina shows that it has cost $4.23 per capita to educate the white +children of the state and only $1.35 per capita to educate the colored +children. + +When the present Constitution of South Carolina was in process of +construction, the Supreme Court of the United States had not passed upon +the legality of the so-called educational provision of the Mississippi +Constitution, and the possibility that it might in the near future +declare all such enactments repugnant to the Constitution of the United +States deterred the members of the South Carolina constitutional +convention from going the full length of the Mississippi plan. Although +they had assembled for no other purpose than to disfranchise the Negro, +yet out of fear of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, +they failed to do all they purposed. + +George L. Tillman, the brother of the present United States Senator from +that state, spoke in the convention the following significant and +pathetic words: + + "Mr. President, we can all hope a great deal from the constitution + we have adopted. It is not such an instrument as we would have made + had we been a free people. We are not a free people; we have not + been since the war. I fear it will be some time before we can call + ourselves free. I have had that fact very painfully impressed upon + me for several years. _If we were free, instead of having Negro + suffrage we would have Negro slavery; instead of having the United + States Government we would have the Confederate States Government; + instead of paying $300,000 pension tribute we would be receiving + it._"[12] + +The Constitution of Louisiana, in its attempt to disfranchise the Negro +and enfranchise, so to speak, every other class of men, the ignorant +scum of Europe, as well as the intelligent and illiterate native born +whites, outdoes both Mississippi and South Carolina. It adopts +practically the same educational and property qualifications as are +contained in the Mississippi and South Carolina instruments. The fifth +section of it furnishes a true index to the spirit which is behind all +of these disfranchising enactments. With vindictive memory, the framers +of the Louisiana Constitution qualified as electors all who were +entitled to vote on January 1, 1867 or at any date prior thereto as well +as the sons and grandsons of such persons, whether or not they possess +intelligence or property. Herein they display the same spirit which +refused to accord to the Negro the right to vote previous to 1867. + +What has been the attitude of the Courts towards these enactments which +in the interest of oligarchy have set aside republican governments in +the South and nullified the Constitution of the United States? + +Naturally, the state courts have upheld them. The most remarkable +judicial utterance since the famous Dred Scott decision is that of the +supreme court of Mississippi in the case of Ratliff vs. Beale, +predicated upon the constitution of Mississippi respecting the elective +franchise. The Court said: + + "Within the field of permissible action, under the limitations + imposed by the Federal Constitution, the convention swept the + circle of expedients to obstruct the exercise of the franchise by + the Negro race. By reason of its previous condition of servitude + and dependence, this race had acquired or accentuated certain + peculiarities of habit, of temperament, and character, which + clearly distinguished it as a race from that of the whites--a + patient, docile people, careless, landless, and migratory within + narrow limits, without forethought, and its criminal members given + rather to furtive offenses than to the robust crimes of the whites. + _Restrained by the Federal Constitution from discriminating against + the Negro race, the convention discriminated against its + characteristics and the offenses to which its weaker members were + prone._"[13] + +Thus a court created by this new constitution of Mississippi declares +that it, in spite of the Fifteenth Amendment, discriminates against the +Negro race "by reason of its previous condition of servitude and +dependence," and at the same time upholds that instrument. + +The constitutionality of these disfranchising enactments has not been +made a direct issue in the Supreme Court of the United States. The case +of Williams vs. State of Mississippi[14], the decision of which is +commonly supposed to have sustained their constitutionality, only +brought the question up collaterally without proper allegations or +sufficient proof. From an intimation made by the Court in this case, it +is not improbable that when a direct issue upon their constitutionality +is properly presented, it may render a decision consonant with that +which it rendered in the case of Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, wherein the Court +said: + + "Though the law in itself be fair on its face and impartial in + appearance, yet, if it be applied and administered by public + authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as to + practically make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons + in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of + equal justice is still within the prohibition of the + Constitution."[15] + +There are other grounds for the belief that the Federal Supreme Court +will refuse to sustain these instruments of disfranchisement, even +though it has not of recent years acted in a manner to inspire faith. + +These enactments have never received the approval of the people of the +states. Of a total of 235,604 male citizens of voting age in South +Carolina in 1890, more than 102,000 of whom were white men, only 60,925 +participated in the election of November 6, 1894, at which the members +of the constitutional convention were elected. Of the number thus voting +only 31,402 were counted in favor of holding the convention. Thus +one-seventh of the citizens called a convention and enacted a +constitution which disfranchised more than one hundred thousand +electors. The constitutions of Mississippi and Louisiana were adopted in +the same way. + +These so called constitutions, besides being repugnant to the spirit and +purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment are also violative of the acts of +Congress restoring the rebellious states to the Union, which acts the +Federal Supreme Court has on several occasions declared +constitutional.[16] + +Pursuant to the reconstruction legislation, these states adopted +constitutions admitting the Negro to the ballot and then asked to be +readmitted to representation in Congress. Congress, having approved of +their constitutions, enacted that they be entitled to representation in +Congress, "upon the following _fundamental_ conditions: That the +constitutions of neither of said states shall ever be so amended or +changed as to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the United +States of the right to vote in said states, who are entitled to vote by +the constitution thereof herein recognized."[17] + +These states accepted these fundamental conditions and are consequently +bound by them.[18] + + +III + +What effect have these disfranchising enactments had upon the status of +the Negro? Has he lost nothing more than the bare right to vote? Has he +been deprived of nothing but an abstract right to a voice in the affairs +of government and of no other privilege than the possibility of a share +of political power? + +Surely the loss of any one of the foregoing is not unimportant in a +democratic form of government. But he has lost much more, and the +probabilities are that, if these obvious discriminations are allowed to +continue, he will be brought to his deepest humiliation. The law which +deprives him of the badge of citizenship, changes at once his legal +status and cuts him off from respect. His disqualification as an elector +shuts him out of the jury box in courts where what few rights he has +left are adjudicated and his grievances redressed. His disqualification +as an elector and as a juror discredits him as a witness. In the states +which have adopted these disfranchising constitutions, more than three +hundred thousand citizens have been thereby disqualified as jurors. This +is all the more outrageous, because in the same states advantage has +been taken in criminal legislation of what the Supreme Court of +Mississippi has termed "certain peculiarities of habit and character of +the Negro" whereby "furtive offenses," which in other communities are +treated as mere misdemeanors, are made felonies and are usually visited +with greater punishment than are the "robust crimes" of the whites. In +South Carolina, for instance, the breach of a labor contract has been +made a crime, the object being to reduce the Negro to a state of +serfdom. + +Not only has the legal status of the Negro been gravely affected by +these disfranchising enactments; his economic status has also been +lowered. A Mississippian states the following as the reason for +disfranchising the Negro in his state: + + "It is a question of political economy which the people of the + North can not realize nor understand _and which they have no right + to discuss as they have no power to determine_. If the Negro is + permitted to engage in politics his usefulness as a laborer is at + an end. _He can no longer be controlled or utilized._ The South has + to deal with him as an industrial and economic factor and _is + forced to assert its control over him in sheer self-defense_."[19] + +Thus Negro labor must be managed, and control must be asserted over him. +His possession of the ballot would make him a free laborer and would +enable him to demand the wages of free labor. It is truly an "economic +problem," in which not only the Negro of the South is concerned, but +also the interests of free labor in every section of this country. + +These disfranchising enactments in that they lower the legal and +economic status of the black man, also tend to lower his educational and +social status. The political and economic supremacy of the southern +oligarchy is dependent upon the ignorance and the social degradation of +the Negro. It is, therefore, not surprising that the politicians now +dominant in the South assert that education disqualifies him as a field +hand,--as a manageable factor,--and that consequently there must be a +decrease in the amount of money expended for his education or that his +education must be directed along lines which will make him more +adaptable to management as an economic factor for their sole benefit. +The educated Negro is not more desirable now than he was fifty years +ago. It is a marvel how the great body of southern white people, a great +many of whom are favorable to the advancement of the Negro, will permit +men of the type of the average politicians who now exercise control +among them to stand thus in the way of the true progress of the South. + +First, it is asserted that the right to vote destroys his usefulness as +a laborer; then, that education turns his head and makes him +discontented with the plantation where wages reach the high water mark +of six dollars a month, which may or may not be paid according to the +whim of his employer; and finally that the privilege of respectable +accommodations furnished by common carriers which enjoy unusual public +franchises makes him impudent, noisy and self-respecting, the proper +remedy for which is a system of "Jim Crow Cars." Thus with the passing +away of the Negro's right to vote, begins the reappearance of the odious +system of Black Laws which are designed to degrade the womanhood and +manhood of the Negro race. The whole trend of southern legislation is to +fix what has been termed the "proper status of the Negro--subordination +to the superior race." Not a single line has been written upon the +statute books of a single southern state within the last decade in +recognition of the Negro as a man entitled to respect, or fair and just +consideration. + +In 1857, Mr. Lincoln uttered the following words in reference to +slavery, which are not wanting in significance in their bearing upon the +present assault upon the Negro: + + "To aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, + it (the Declaration of Independence) is assailed and sneered at, + construed and hawked at and torn, till, if the framers could rise + from their graves, they would hardly recognize it. All the powers + of earth seem combined against him. Ambition follows, philosophy + follows, and the theology of the day is fast joining in the cry. + They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person + and left no prying instrument with him; and now they have him as it + were bolted with a lock of a hundred keys which can never be + unlocked, except by the concurrence of every key in the hands of a + hundred different men and they scattered to a hundred different + places. And now they stand musing as to what invention in all the + domain of mind and matter can be produced to make the impossibility + of his escape more complete than it is." + + +IV + +The nation can not put up with many more of these instruments of +disfranchisement. It can not endure the present ones very much longer. +The question is ceasing to be one of interest merely to the Negro; it is +rapidly becoming one of national moment. It is becoming a contest +between democracy and oligarchy in which the stability and integrity of +republican institutions are involved. Already a few thousand minions of +oligarchy are exerting a larger influence in the national government +than do millions of freemen who are obeying the Federal Constitution by +maintaining a republican form of government. The election returns from +the three states of Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi show how +startling is the power which they exercise in Congress by reason of +these disfranchising instruments. The following shows the number of +votes polled in these states for members of Congress in 1898 and in the +case of Louisiana the votes polled may be compared with the returns of +1896 when the old constitution was in force: + + LOUISIANA + + District. Total Vote, 1898. Total Vote, 1896. + + I 6,318 15,412 + II 7,856 16,848 + III 5,903 15,968 + IV 5,900 16,148 + V 4,805 15,264 + VI 2,494 16,482 + ----- ------ + Average 5,549 Average 16,020 + + + MISSISSIPPI SOUTH CAROLINA + + District. Total Vote, 1898. District. Total Vote, 1898. + + I 2,468 I 4,559 + II 3,175 II 4,138 + III 2,661 III 4,361 + IV 4,551 IV 4,632 + V 5,105 V 4,230 + VI 6,071 VI 4,916 + VII 3,605 VII 4,938 + ----- ----- + Average 3,948 Average 4,539 + +The total congressional vote of Louisiana which elected six members to +Congress is less by nearly 500 votes than the average for one district +in Iowa. _One elector in Louisiana exercises about seven times as much +power in Congress as one in Ohio._ The average congressional vote of +Mississippi for seven districts is nearly 35,000 votes less than the +average for twenty-one districts in Ohio, while the total congressional +vote of South Carolina for seven Congressmen is more than seven thousand +below the total vote of a single congressional district in North +Carolina. The total vote cast in the twenty congressional districts of +South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi in the election of 1898 was +91,184; while that polled in the ten congressional districts of +Wisconsin was 332,204. Thus, although these states cast nearly two +hundred and fifty thousand votes less than the state of Wisconsin, they +control twice as much power as that state in the national legislature. + +The southern people themselves can not permit these violent +infringements of the principles of republican government to continue +without irrevocable detriment to their best and highest interests. In +the degree that they stand by in silence and see the Negro stripped of +his civil and political rights by a band of unscrupulous men who seek +no higher end than their personal aggrandizement, they compromise their +own civil and political freedom, and put in jeopardy the industrial +progress of the south. The bane of the South today is her selfish and +misguided political leadership, the men who will not scruple to +sacrifice upon the altars of their insatiable ambition for power every +interest linked with her economic prosperity and all consideration for +civic virtue by which alone the greatness of a people is measured. + +Her misfortune lies not in any danger from Negro domination, for of all +the classes of her population the Negro is the least capable of working +her injury and the least disposed to do so. Her real danger lies in the +pernicious activity of her dominant political leaders who perpetuate +their control by overriding local and national authority to the +diminution of both public and private security. Law has been dethroned +and the respectable and industrious portion of the people must witness +the spectacle and endure the humiliation of riot, bloodshed, and +assassination with impunity of innocent and unoffending citizens by the +beneficiaries under these disfranchising constitutions. + +The leading paper of the state of Louisiana, which threw the weight of +its influence in favor of the constitutional convention which was held +for the sole and avowed purpose of disfranchising the Negro, has +recently made the following important confession: + + "Assassination is still the order of the day and night in + Tangipahoa Parish. William McGee, a white man, employed at a saw + mill was the victim. He was waylaid yesterday morning and fired + upon, with the result that he was badly hurt. A posse turned out + with dogs to find the murderers, but to no purpose, although the + posse was fired on several times out of ambush. The authorities in + that parish seem incapable of making arrests of the perpetrators of + these numerous assassinations that occur among them, but when by + some chance an arrest is made, no jury is found that will convict. + The result is that outlaws have everything their own way, while the + peaceable people have no assurance that at any moment they will not + be murdered by cowardly assassins."[20] + +Thus it is that the southern white people, by permitting a few desperate +politicians to outlaw the Negro, find themselves at the mercy of an +oligarchy which has everything its own way. + +According to the census of 1890, there are 102,657 white male citizens +of voting age in South Carolina and 132,947 colored male citizens of +voting age, making a total of 253,604 male citizens who were entitled to +vote in that year. The election returns from that state for November +1898 show that the highest total vote polled for any office was only +28,258, averaging less than eight hundred votes to each county, thus +showing that less than one eighth of the male citizens have it in their +power to control the administration and policies of the state. + +If by a mere technicality one class of citizens can be deprived of the +rights and immunities guaranteed by the organic law of the nation, what +is to prevent any other class from sharing the same fate? If less than +one fourth of the male citizens of Mississippi can usurp the right to +exclusively manage the local government, what is to prevent a smaller +proportion from doing the same? If it is possible for a minority of the +people of Alabama to disfranchise one class of citizens on account of +race without the consent of the majority, what is to prevent the +disfranchisement of any other class on account of _political_ views? +Southern white men who view with apprehension these untoward political +tendencies, who are alarmed at the passing away of the last vestiges of +a republican form of government from that section of our Union, and who +silently condemn and deplore the outrageous and inexcusable manner in +which the black man is being divested of his political and civil rights +for mere party advantage, must seriously and actively face the +situation, if they would save the south from the shame and the +humiliation with which she is threatened, and which she has already too +keenly experienced at the hands of a profligate leadership. + +There is a dormant statesmanship in the south that must and will exert +itself mightily, "a moral and intellectual intelligence which is not +going to be much longer beguiled out of its moral right of way by +questions of political punctilio, but will seek that plane of universal +justice and equity which it is every people's duty before God to seek." + +But the question is not a sectional one. The whole American people are +deeply concerned in it. Nullification in South Carolina is as great a +national menace today as it proved to be half a century ago. Republican +institutions and the national welfare can have no guarantee or +protection against the evil consequences threatened by defiant trampling +upon constitutional authority. Not in its most palmy days did the slave +system possess such power as is aimed at by these latter day nullifiers. +Having shorn the Negro of his political rights and brought him into +industrial subjection, thereby usurping power both in state and national +government, they now threaten to dominate the economic and industrial +policies of the nation. + +This government can not long continue half republican in form and half +oligarchic. + +JOHN L. LOVE. + + + + +Footnotes: + +[1] Greeley's American Conflict, Vol. I, p. 417. + +[2] Blaine, "Twenty Years of Congress," II., 94. + +[3] McPherson, "History of Reconstruction," p. 40. + +[4] Ibid p. 36. + +[5] McPherson, History of Reconstruction p. 35. + +[6] Blaine, "Twenty Years of Congress," II., 101. + +[7] 16 Wall, p. 70. + +[8] Blaine, "Twenty Years of Congress," II., 266. + +[9] Prof. Kelley Miller, article in "Washington Star," Nov. 14, 1898. + +[10] Chicago Weekly "Inter Ocean," Dec. 26, 1890. + +[11] I 20 So Rep, 869, also Mississippi Code (1892) Sec. 3802. + +[12] Journal of S. C. Constitutional Convention. 1731. + +[13] 20 So. Rep. 865. + +[14] 170 U. S. 213. + +[15] 118, U. S. 373. + +[16] 16, Wall., 70-73; 92 U. S., 214. + +[17] 15 Stat. at Large. 73. Also 16 Stat. 67. + +[18] Art. 6 Const. U. S., 2. Story on Const., Secs. 1836-1843. + +[19] Chicago Inter Ocean, Nov. 4, 1890. + +[20] New Orleans Picayune, April 4, 1899. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. + +The following misprints have been corrected: + "Goverment" corrected to "Government" (page 10) + "expendtures" corrected to "expenditures" (page 12) + "perservation" corrected to "preservation" (page 13) + "succeded" corrected to "succeeded" (page 13) + "disqualifing" corrected to "disqualifying" (page 16) + "requisiion" corrected to "requisition" (page 18) + "remarkble" corrected to "remarkable" (page 20) + "prosperty" corrected to "prosperity" (page 26) + "apprehenson" corrected to "apprehension" (page 27) + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Disfranchisement of the Negro, by John L. 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