The Negro and the elective franchise. A Series Of Papers And A Sermon Part 2

The dangers of a "Solid South" can only be averted by a faithful performance of every promise which the Nation has made to the citizen.

The execution of the laws, and the punishment of all those who violate them, are the only safe methods by which an enduring peace can be secured and genuine prosperity established throughout the South.

Whatever promises the Nation makes the Nation must perform. A Nation cannot with safety relegate this duty to the States. The "Solid South"

must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all honest opinions must there find free expression. To this end the honest voter must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud.

[1884.]

The perpetuity of our inst.i.tutions rests upon the maintenance of a free ballot, an honest count, and correct returns. We denounce the fraud and violence practiced by the Democracy in Southern States, by which the will of a voter is defeated, as dangerous to the preservation of free inst.i.tutions; and we solemnly arraign the Democratic party as being the guilty recipient of fruits of such fraud and violence.

We extend to the Republicans of the South, regardless of their former party affiliations, our cordial sympathy, and pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the pa.s.sage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen, of whatever race and color, the full and complete recognition, possession and exercise of all civil and political rights.

[1888.]

We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the national Const.i.tution and to the indissoluble union of the States; to the autonomy reserved to the States under the Const.i.tution; to the personal rights and liberties of citizens in all the States and Territories in the Union, and especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections and to have that ballot duly counted. We hold the free and honest popular ballot and the just and equal representation of all the people to be the foundation of our republican government, and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority.

[1892.]

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Const.i.tution. The free and honest popular ballot, the just and equal representation of all the people, as well as their just and equal protection under the laws, are the foundation of our Republican inst.i.tutions, and the party will never relent its efforts until the integrity of the ballot and the purity of elections shall be fully guaranteed and protected in every State.

[1896.]

We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot, and that such ballot to be counted and returned as cast.

[1900.]

It was the plain purpose of the fifteenth amendment to the Const.i.tution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State governments, whether by statutory or const.i.tutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary, and should be condemned.

[1904.]

We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconst.i.tutionally 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 Const.i.tution 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 ma.s.s of unredeemed pledges fell of their own weight, and the time seemed opportune to subst.i.tute a less weighty declaration; perhaps the party only sought a more efficient means of accomplis.h.i.+ng 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 Const.i.tution 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 s.h.i.+fting around to a divorce between cla.s.ses. Therefore it is that in a part of the writing and ruling cla.s.s, we feel that there is a gravitating of morals southward. 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.

"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."

[BurgessReconstruction and the Const.i.tution, page 298.]

It is a mistake, therefore, to a.s.sume 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 pa.s.sing 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 s.p.a.ce with stone. Days of tremendous business activity, or national triumph are not likely to be so spent.

We _must_ not make the mistake of a.s.suming 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Const.i.tution, again it may be asked? No, the Const.i.tution is an ideal, not a real body of law. Von Holst wrote: "Polk had once stated that the nature of American inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tutions had been accomplished. How obscure the vision of the historian! The Const.i.tution 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 pa.s.sionate. 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 sc.u.m, 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 cla.s.s to persecute into submission those whose sense of justice or generosity threatens the crust from above. Beneath, the under world, sweating, sp.a.w.ning, 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 cla.s.s 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 fas.h.i.+oned out of it that n.o.ble band which is the inspiration of every true Church in the Christian world. The cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses 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 countrys destiny.

Outside of the slave states, equal partic.i.p.ation 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 ma.s.s which human society everywhere is constantly precipitating,"

to borrow the words of Cable, is incompatible with the _spirit_ of restriction.

It is inequitable. For, again quoting from this author: "There is no safe protection but self-protection: poverty needs at least as much civil equipment, for self-protection as property needs: the right and liberty to acquire intelligence, virtue and wealth are just as precious as the right and liberty to maintain them, and need quite as much self-protection."

It is subversive of the republican basis of the state,tending as it does to deposit more and more political power in the hands of fewer and fewer men. From "all up" to "some down" in the matter of political rights is a precipitous leap: but this step once taken, a gentle slope succeeds. From many to fewer members of the privileged cla.s.s, the mind advances easily, with no intrusive principle to block the way. If a poll tax of one dollar can be made a condition of voting regardless of ability to pay it, then why not ten or twenty? If a poll tax, why not a property tax, or wealth? If ability to interpret the Const.i.tution, why not a college education?

As restriction is practiced in the South, it breeds contempt for the law:

And increasing unrest, for like a s...o...b..ll it swells and gathers fresh resistance as it goes:

And dishonesty, for the disfranchising laws are not being lived up to.

This is inherent, for the acquisition of the required knowledge or wealth would defeat the very object of the law. It puts a premium upon ignorance, for thereby the desired end of disfranchis.e.m.e.nt is furthered:And upon thriftlessness, for the same reason;And upon criminality and false charges of crime, since even this price must be paid by those determined to work their will.

What evils of universal suffrage are equal to these? Can an appeal be made in the name of minority rights by those who would themselves efface minorities? When slaves were escaping, they demanded that the const.i.tutional guarantees be fulfilled to the letter, clamored like Shylock for the pound of flesh which the law allowed. Now, too, they demand of the amendments as before of the clauses of the instrument reserving power to the states, that they be construed by the letter:but with what a change of object,no longer that the rights of minorities may be respected but that they may be utterly suppressed.

In two states, viz; Mississippi and South Carolina, the colored people are in the majority. In the other four disfranchising states, as well as all other Southern states, they are in the minority. In the group of states disfranchising the colored voters, viz; N. C., S. C., Va., Ala., Miss., and La., the

white population is 5,396,649 = 55 per cent.

colored " "

4,453,253 = 45 per cent.

total " "

9,849,902 = 100 per cent.

BY THE 12TH CENSUS (1900.)

And if it be a.s.serted that the superior must be allowed to rule, is superiority to be proved by a fiat of brute force? Is mere armed lawlessness the index of superior worth? When the nations agreed to fix limits to the cruelties of war, did they thereby place a penalty upon brains?

Finally, is it claimed that a free ballot signifies unlimited corruption? Read the answer in Englands purification of her politics: I quote from Sir Thomas Erskine May:

"Political morality may be elevated by extending liberties: but bribery has everywhere been the vice of growing wealth." "The first election of George the Thirds reign was signalized by unusual excesses:" A seat in Parliament was for sale, like an estate and they bought it without hesitation or misgiving. "Nor were they regarded with much favor by the leaders of parties; for men who had bought their seats,and paid dearly for them,owed no allegiance to political patrons. "They sought admission to Parliament, not so much with a view to a political career, as to serve mere personal ends, to forward commercial speculations, to extend their connections and to gratify their social aspirations. But their independence and ambition well fitted them for the service of the court.... They soon ranged themselves among the kings friends: and thus the court policy,which was otherwise subversive of freedom became a.s.sociated with parliamentary corruption. "When the return of members was left to a small but independent body of electors, their individual votes were secured by bribery: and where it rested with proprietors or corporations, the seat was purchased outright." Gatton e. g. was sold for 75,000. Of the 658 members of the House of Commons 487 were returned by nomination ... not more than one third of the House were the free choice of the limited bodies of electors then intrusted with the franchise.... Representatives holding their seats by a general system of corruption could scarcely fail to be themselves corrupt. What they had bought, they were but too ready to sell. And how glittering the prizes offered as the price of their services! Peerages, baronetcies, patronage and court favor for the richplaces, pensions and bribes for the needy.

All that the government had to bestow they could command.... Another instrument of corruption was found in the raising of money for the public service. In March 1763, Lord Bute contracted a loan of three millions and a half; and having distributed shares among his friends,the scrip immediately rose to a premium of 11 per cent.... Here the country sustained a loss of 385,000.... Stock jobbing became the fas.h.i.+on; and many members of Parliament were notoriously concerned in it. Again in 1781 ... a loan of 12,000,000 was contracted to defray the cost of the disastrous American war.... Its terms were so favorable that suddenly the scrip rose nearly 11 per cent. It was computed by Mr. Fox that a profit of 900,000 would be derived from the loan; and by others that half of the loan was subscribed for by members of the House of Commons. Lord Rockingham said. "The loan was made merely for the purpose of corrupting the Parliament to support a wicked, impolitic and ruinous _war_.

Now as to the electorate. "In Scotland in 1831, the total number of county voters did not exceed 2500; and the const.i.tuencies of the 66 boroughs amounted to 1440.... The county of Argyll, with a population of 100,000 had but 115 electors: Caithness with 36,000, contained 47 free holders. Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two first cities of Scotland, had each a const.i.tuency of 33 persons.... A great kingdom, with more than two millions of people,intelligent, instructed, industrious and peaceable,was virtually disfranchised.... According to a statement made by the Duke of Richmond in 1780, not more than 6,000 men returned a clear majority of the British House of Commons.... It was alleged in the pet.i.tion of the Society of the Friends of the People (presented in 1793.) that 84 individuals absolutely returned 157 members to Parliament ... and that a majority of the House were returned by 154 patrons....

"The glaring defects and vices of the representative system which have now been exposed,the restricted and unequal franchise, the bribery of a limited electoral body, and the corruption of the representatives themselves,formed the strongest arguments for Parliamentary reform....

The theory of an equal representation, had in the course of ages, been entirely subverted.... The Reform bill of 1832 supplied the cure. "It was," says May, "a measure, at once bold, comprehensive, moderate and const.i.tutional. Popular: but not democratic:it extended liberty, without hazarding revolution. In 1850 the representation of the country was reconstructed on a wider basis. Large cla.s.ses had been admitted to the franchise: and the House of Commons represented more freely the interests and political sentiments of the people. The reformed Parliament, accordingly, has been more liberal and progressive in its policy than the Parliaments of old, more vigorous and active; more susceptible to the influence of public opinion: and more secure in the confidence of the people."

Here let us leave the history of English political corruption and the remedy which was found in a fairer representation of the people. In truth, we might well have left it soonerif not altogether; for it is likely to be said that all of this is nothing to the purpose. The South has before her the practical problem of dealing with some millions of Negroes, to the solution of which, the experience of the English people furnishes no aid. Once more, then, we must consider the actual situation in this country to-day.

The Negro problem has been stated: What does justice to the Negro demand? Approaching our subject from this point of view, we may try to conclude:

1st. What justice _does_ demand; and