The Washington bee., 1897-11-27
NEGRO RANCHISEMENT
BY LAW (?)
WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
QUIeTLY AcoUIEsCE?

times to dlcusS in your columns matters
OF real interest to the Negro masses,
| beg liberty to again call attention to
the above question discussed by Mr..
L. {. Moore, in your last issue MIR.
Moore. who is certainly posted in the
conditions at the South, from a long
reSidenc there, calls attention to the
New York interview of Mr.. Hearsey,
of Louisiana, mentioned in the Times
and BEE ola few days ago, who saws
the people (some of the white people)
of Louisiana will in the spring, enact
State Constitution to disfranchise the
Negroes of that State, by requiring an
educational and property qualification,
which these minority white people
know the Negroes do not, as whole,
possess. Mr.. Moore asks Mr.. Hearsey
some grave questions.
| do not propose to ask him any ques-
tions Mr.. Hearsey, and men of his
feeling need no appeal to reason. They
will hear none. propose to ask the
Republican Party some questions. |
differ with Mr.. Moore, politically but
as Negroes are made to understand
everywhere, that they are Negroes, we
must be a unison on these race ques-
tons. No Douglass and no Langston
now, to preach sound doctrine, and to
declare in favor of justice and equality
before the law for Negroes.
The Negro leaders of to day preach
only such doctrine as is popular and
we'll received. Not choosing to live and
die in The faith as Douglass and Langs-
ton did, hope, like the BEE, that God
may give us true men in their places.
feel that voice the sentiments of the
Negro masses throughout the count
ry especially the south, if not, the polIti-
cal leaders, when | ask the Republican
Party,-my parity view of the Unit
ed States Constitution, declaring this
people should not be disfranchised-in
view of the platform pledge of 1896
guaranteeing the right to the ballot,
based on citizenship in the United
States alone, whether the States of Lou
isana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and
Georgia, shall at will, set aside the
Constitution of the United States
propose to make this matter plain.
From the great number of white iliit-
crates in those States previous 10 the
war and their failure to make either a
property or educational test then,
real motive, now it would be plain
their object now is to deny only the
Negroes participation in the Govern
ment except as a taxpayer and an oc-
cupant of their jailS, warehouses and
penitentiarieS.
We do not ask the republican party
to pass any special negro legislation at
this late stage of the game, but the 18th
I4th, and 18th, Amendments were spe-
cial negro legislation, but it was the
whole peoples work, it went into the
Constitution and was supposed to have
! legislation of Congress to enforce it.
know there is in existence one solita-
ry enactment, namely, the penalty for
excluding negroes from juries, but de-
fense of negroes rights to citizenship
! have become SO unpopular that al
! though the United States Supreme
| Court has declared this enactment
! Constitutional, no judiciary, republi-
can or democrat will enforce it, for
even in Georgia, that puts up such
! great republican lights as Buck, Hen
son, Johnson, Lyons, Pledger and
| RuCker. "A few days ago the negro
| County of MusCogee was treated to
sensation by drawing one negro juror,
even by accident, but which was cor,
rected soon after by excluding him,
| with the United States law, with pen
atty of $1,000 on the books a dead let
ter.
There is not a republican living who
has honesty, who could for a moment
entertain the opinion that the negro in
thirty years only, under the clrcum
i CT hoI oh tn M L 6
himself the equal of the white man IN
property and education. Nor coulC
this same republican pretend to be
lieve that property and educationa
test in the southern states was not II
direct conflict with the constitutional
prohibitions in the Fourteenth anC
Fifteenth Amendments. | will assure
him that the supreme court OF MlsSlS'
sippi has declared, in a reverted de-
cision, that the purpose Of that provis
ion was to disfranchise the negroes
and that alone, and the state canno
deny it.
| The republican party gave u:
amendments which prohibited this de
nial, making no particular exception
as to means. How can republican
pretend that this particular excuse !:
greater than their constitution! Soutf
Carolinia's S Constitutional Convention
forcibly, made up principally of white
democrats, was SO outSpoken in its pur
pose that an enterprising, but stralSh
forward delegate, Mr.. Aldrich, who
wanted them to speak plainly, Offered
provision that in election for mem
bers of the Legislature none but white
citizens should vote, carrying with 1
the provision that none but white .mer
should hold Office Senator Iillmal
fought this down as too plainly expos
ing their real purpose. His Language
to the public, the constitution an6
laws they made, the fact that with two
republican parties in South Carolina
both voting for McKinley-thousands
IC?) of white republicans and I5o,ooc
colored ones only voted for Mckinle!
900 votes ought to be enough to at
test both the purpose and result II
South Carolina. Mississippi, witt
17o, 900 negro voters, gave Mr.. Nc
Kinley 1900 only. Congressman
iCatchings, of the same district o
Messrs. Bruce, Lynch and Hill, Will
45,o6o Negro votes and 1900 white