[Illustration: FILIPINO LADY OF MANILA.]
The Washington Post, which cannot be rated as generally partial to the colored citizens of the Union, and which is especially vicious in its attacks on the colored soldiers, has the following to say as to the proposed North Carolina amendment, which is so well said that we insert the same in full as an indication to our people that justice is not yet dead--though seemingly tardy:
SUFFRAGE IN NORTH CAROLINA.
(Washington Post, Feb. 20, 1899.)
The amendment to the Constitution of North Carolina, which has for its object the limitation of the suffrage in the State, appears to have been modeled on the new Louisiana laws and operate a gross oppression and injustice. It is easy to see that the amendment is not intended to disfranchise the ignorant, but to stop short with the Negro; to deny to the illiterate black man the right of access to the ballot box and yet to leave the way wide open to the equally illiterate whites. In our opinion the policy thus indicated is both dangerous and unjust. We expressed the same opinion in connection with the Louisiana laws, and we see no reason to amend our views in the case of North Carolina. The proposed arrangement is wicked. It will not bear the test of intelligent and impartial examination. We believe in this case, as in that of Louisiana, that the Federal Constitution has been violated, and we hope that the people of North Carolina will repudiate the blunder at the polls.
We realize with sorrow and apprehension that there are elements at the South enlisted in the work of disfranchising the Negro for purposes of mere party profit. It has been so in Louisiana, where laws were enacted under which penniless and illiterate Negroes cannot vote, while the ignorant and vicious classes of whites are enabled to retain and exercise the franchise. So far as we are concerned--and we believe that the best element of the South in every State will sustain our proposition-we hold that, as between the ignorant of the two races, the Negroes are preferable. They are conservative; they are good citizens; they take no stock in social schisms and vagaries; they do not consort with anarchists; they cannot be made the tools and agents of incendiaries; they constitute the solid, worthy, estimable yeomanry of the South. Their influence in government would be infinitely more wholesome than the influence of the white sansculotte, the riff-raff, the idlers, the rowdies, and the outlaws. As between the Negro, no matter how illiterate he may be, and the "poor white," the property-holders of the South prefer the former. Excepting a few impudent, half-educated, and pestiferous pretenders, the Negro masses of the South are honest, well-meaning, industrious, and safe citizens. They are in sympathy with the superior race; they find protection and encouragement with the old slave-holding class; if left alone, they would furnish the bone and sinew of a secure and progressive civilization. To disfranchise this class and leave the degraded whites in possession of the ballot would, as we see the matter, be a blunder, if not a crime.
The question has yet to be submitted to a popular vote. We hope it will be decided in the negative. Both the Louisiana Senators are on record as proclaiming the unconstitutionality of the law. Both are eminent lawyers, and both devoted absolutely to the welfare of the South. We can only hope, for the sake of a people whom we admire and love, that this iniquitous legislation may be overruled in North Carolina as in Louisiana.