First. The negro has proven himself unworthy of suffrage, and it should be taken from him.
Second. Negro rule is ruinous to a State.
Third. The honest, intelligent people of a state should control it.
Fourth. Negro suffrage had been given a fair trial with terrible results.
Fifth. Freedom could not in a moment transform an ignorant man into an intelligent citizen.
Sixth. The negro was being made a tool in the hands of thieves and plunderers.
Seventh. There was not a state under negro rule that showed even a trace of honest, intelligent government.
Eighth. That existing conditions must be overthrown at whatever cost.
The negroes were told plainly that they would not be allowed to vote and it would be best for them not to attempt it. There was no concealment. The men who guided the movement in the various states of the South had the courage to declare that black supremacy must come to an end.
The leaders of that revolution were John B. Gordon of Georgia, L. Q. C. Lamar and James Z. George, of Mississippi, A. H. Garland, of Arkansas, Isham G. Harris, of Tennessee, John T. Morgan, of Alabama, James B. Eustis, of Louisiana, Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, Richard Coke of Texas, and Zebulon B. Vance, of North Carolina. They belong to the eternal honor roll of the South, and their names shall be remembered after the monuments of marble and tablets of brass which mark the last resting place of many of them shall have crumbled into dust.