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.