The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-04-24
correspondence.
The Editors r not responsible for
views expressed by Correspondents.
MUST STAND OR PAIL AS a
49,. WHOLE.

EDITORS PROGRESSIVE FARMER =
This much you say of the amendment
in your paper of the 3rd of April, and
argue the point at length in the light
of the fifteenth amendment of the
q. S, Constitution. But let us look
for a moment at the fourteenth, or
equal rights, better known as the
reconstruction amendment, at first
rejected by the Southern States and
only submitted to afterwards under
pressure. Article 1 reads as follows:
"An persons born or n~aturalized in
the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of
the United States and of the State
wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States nor
shall any State deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property without due
process of law, nor deny any person
within it's jurisdiction the equal pro-
lection of the laws"
If you will take the trouble to read
section 2 you will see that it was
framed specially to prevent any male
person from being disfranchised by
any State who was 81 years of age
and a citizen of the United States,
and affixed a penalty upon the State
that might do so at any time in viO-
latiOn of section 2 of said amend
ment. Section 2 throws light more
fully on what is meant in section 1
when it says mo State shall make or
enforce any law that shall abridge
the privileges and immunities of citi-
zens of the United States" clearly
showing that by privileges is meant
the right tie vote, and these are the
very words used in section 2.
Now the grandfather clause or sec
ton five confers the right of free
suffrage upon some 70, 900 or 5000
blacks who we're disfranchised in
1885. before the 14th amendment was
adopted, and denies that free priv
lege to all blacks who were emanCi-
pated by article 10 of the United
States Constitution, and that, too,
Independently Of section 4 of the pro
posed amendment. How then can it
be argued that section 4 and the other
sections that are constitutional be-
yond question must fall with the
grandfather clause that every lawyer
knows is unconstitutional, and is not
necessarily connected in any way
with the other sections in thus dis
eliminating and abridging the rights
of one and the same?
Is it not strage indeed that the
men of this day should have discOv-
cred that by a simple educational
qualification the great lawyer of the
past could so easily have nullified the
18th or reconstruction amendment of
the Constitution, and shut out all the
black voters and let in all the whites
if only they could have been wise
enough to frame the grandfather
clause that so easily fixes the race
question in the eyes of it's sage au-
thOrs for you must remember that
in 1868 none of the blacks could read
and write. What fools the great
constitutional lawyers of that day
must have been when compared with
the Solons of our day i! But all of us
know the grandfather clause, that it
is claimed lets in the whites, or as
the papers say "disfranchises no
white man." is simply a decoy duck
to draw off attention from our GOebel
election law that Henry Watson
says 'leaves nothing to chance"
meaning that the election is settled
before the voting is done, and this
has now brought a state of war we
fear in our sister State of Kentucky
and may do the same in our own
State. II. P. HARRELL.
BERTHE Co., N. c.,
A SAMPLE OF RAILROAD