TABLE 5

REPUBLICAN VOTE IN THE SIX STATES; VOTE AFTERDISFRANCHISEMENT SCORED. (World Almanac of 1904.)

YEAR

VA.

NORTHCAR.

SOUTHCAR.

ALA.

MISS.

LA.

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 ½ 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.