This consideration brings me to a second consequence, which would follow a reduction of southern representation. And that is this: It will put an end to the present period of good will and peace between the sections, so disastrous to the rights of the Negro. Such a measure will usher in a period of bitter difference and strife between the two sections again. These differences will not arise merely between the Republicans of the North and the white South, but between democrats of the North and democrats of the South on the Negro question as well. For the northern wing of the Democratic party cannot bid for the colored vote of its section without offending the South and therefore sowing seeds of alienation and strife between them on the question of the rights and wrongs of the Negro, as a citizen. There will follow such differences and strife between the sections, a reaction at the North in favor of the Negro. Public sentiment for juster treatment of the race will gain thereafter steadily in strength. It will influence the Republican party to give to the question a more radical treatment than it now gives it, to take steps to enforce by appropriate legislation the 15th amendment of the Constitution. Such growing public sentiment in favor of according the Negro fairer treatment may do more, it may be able to reach even that pro-Southern tribunal, the Supreme Court, and put like the bees of the Bible honey for the race in its hitherto cold and unresponsive body. Even it may be influenced in time to twist the law in favor of human liberty, not against it, as now. And lastly, it will give the silent South a chance to be heard on the Negro question. It will give it a chance to appeal from those states drunk on the race question, to their sober second thought, a chance to show them the folly and madness of their disfranchisement and consequent degradation of their Negro labor as an economic factor in their development and civilization. And so liberal sentiment towards the Negro may be awakened in the South and be made thus to spread slowly downward as a leavening influence.
And in the third place, reducing Southern representation in Congress and the electoral college will not hurt the Negro. It will not take away from him any right which he now enjoys down there. The doing so cannot in any way change his actual status either in law or in fact. He is now disfranchised; Congress will still have power to enforce the 15th amendment by appropriate legislation and it will do so whenever it can screw its courage to the sticking point. The reduction of Southern representation will certainly break up the present apathetic state of the country in respect to the Negro. With this breaking up there will follow a reaction in favor of freedom, and there will arise in due time a public sentiment which will bring legislation to enforce the right of the Colored people of the South to the ballot well within the range of the possible, yea of the probable, if the South persists after reduction,—but it will not long persist,—in its present purpose to nullify the 15th amendment, and to reduce its Colored people to a condition of a permanently subordinate and servile class, without rights as men or as citizens which southern white people are bound to respect. Let southern representation in Congress be therefore reduced. The sooner the better it will be for the Negro and the Nation.
The law department of the United States Government has at last moved effectively against the meat trust. And I see that the Interstate Commerce Commission is looking into the charge that certain railroads are practicing by a system of rebates discrimination against shippers of live stock, and in favor of packing house products and dressed meats. But alas, how different has been the attitude of the national government toward investigating that greatest of all discriminations in the Republic, namely: the wholesale disfranchisement of Negroes in the South because they are Negroes. A few years ago one of the bravest and most far-seeing of the representatives of Massachusetts in either branch of Congress offered a resolution to investigate the subject merely. The administration, which was then, and they say is now opposed to meddling in this particular manner with the Southern question, was found equal to the occasion. When it failed to silence the voice of Congressman Moody regarding the matter, it lifted him with masterly state craft from the floor of the House, and landed him safely in the Cabinet where he is still, and where his silence might the better be secured. Thus passed the Moody resolution to dusty death, and the place which knew it once in Congress hath known it no more, and will know it no more forever.
But there is another Congressman who for years has watched keenly the growth of this threatening evil, the growth of this wrong so subversive of the rights of the blacks at the South, and so harmful to the interests of our industrial democracy at the North. Five years ago he thought it was high time for the general government to address itself to that subject, and accordingly proposed from his place in Congress suitable measures for that purpose. Unfortunately for Congressman Crumpacker's proposition the presidential election of 1900 was at the time approaching and which, in the opinion of the McKinley administration, called loudly then for silence and oblivion on this vexed question. In obedience to this loud call of the Moloch of party success at the polls, Mr. Crumpacker's bill suffered death by asphyxiation in committee.
The matter was, however, revived by Mr. Crumpacker in a subsequent Congress in the form of a resolution which provided for the appointment by the Speaker of a select committee of thirteen "whose duty it shall be, and who shall have full and ample power to investigate and inquire into the validity of the election laws of the several states and the manner of their enforcement, and whether the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of any of the states or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of any of the states, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for crime." This resolution so reasonable, moderate, and just, fell a victim, so it was reported at the time, to a shrewd bargain struck between the Southern oligarchy on the one hand and the Republican managers of Cuban reciprocity on the other. The Crumpacker resolution was put to sleep amidst the dust heaps of old congressional documents, where it has slept without waking until the present session of Congress, when its profound slumber has been disturbed by renewed attempts made in both branches of the National legislature to revive the subject, and to do what the Republican national platform of 1904 pledged that party to do in the event of its triumph at the polls, according to the plain meaning and purpose of the following plank in that platform.
"We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether, by special discrimination, 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 college shall be proportionally reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States."
And while the Republican party hesitates to redeem its solemn pledge made to the people before the elections last November, the tide of intolerable wrong, of imminent peril:—of intolerable wrong to the blacks and of imminent peril to the Republic, is advancing nearer and rising higher and higher toward the point where to ignore it much longer will mean widespread and far-reaching disaster to our industrial democracy, to Republican institutions in America. On its crest I see approaching forces strong enough to subvert the Constitution, not only in the South but in the North—forces strong enough to uprear on its ruins the vast fabric of plutocratic empire and despotism.
The warning is sounding in our ears, it is sounding in the ears of the people all over the land. Do we heed it, will they?
[The Penning of the Negro—CHARLES CHAUVEAU COOK]
[The Negro in the States of the Revised Constitutions]