The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-09

before a hostile tribunal, the chances are
very strong that the result would not be
influenced by the small number of voters
registered under the provisions of sec
tion 5, in any one Louisiana Confession
al district; and unless it can be shown
that the number of these privileged vot
ers, who voted for ane party or the other,
we're sufficient to affect the result, l do
not see how an election contest would be
seriously affected by this provision in
the Constitution. / have tried to place
myself in the position of counsel for a
negro claiming at any time subsequently
to September 1st 1898, that the Louisiana
Constitution deprived him Of right, and
cannot imagine petition of any kind
which could be framed to secure any kind
of right, of which he has been deprived
by this Constitution. | have reached the
conclusion that even if the scheme be
conceded to be unconstitutional, it is be-
yond attack.
''If you will consider the problem which
confronted us in the State of Louisiana,
think that you will see that we had
only two courses open to us, to-wit, one
was to adopt the scheme which we did,
or something very much like it, or else
to adjourn without doing anything, and
to admit that there was no remedy for the
evils under which we have lived for the
past twenty years. We had all grown
tired of the situation, and of the OPP
probivm cast upon this State by the man
ner in which elections were conducted,
and which manner was in certain parishes
an absolute necessity. with universal suf-
frage, including negro suffrage. l would
state frankly that as one member of the
Convention, / was prepared to adopt any
scheme which offered the slightest
chance of practical solution of the prob
lem. and | believe we struck a perfectly
practical scheme. We exhausted every
imaginable theory before we finally de-
termined to adopt section 5, despite the
opposition of both Senators from this
State who sent dispatches attacking this
scheme when it was under discussion be-
fore the Convention. Some of the news
papers, including the Times Democrat, in
this city, favored an out and out proper
ty or educational qualification. Such
scheme was unquestionably, attractive to
the theorist but in practice the result
would have been that the Constitution
would not have lasted five years. There
is a very large and respectable white pop
uation in this State who have enjoyed the
right of suffrage, in their persons, or in
those of their ancestors, ever since
Louisiana was a French colony, but who
cannot read and write. Those people
were true, not only during the war, but
in the trying times when the white people
of this State were seeking to rid them
selves of carpet-bag Government. If
those voters had been deprived of the
right of suffrage, we should have had them
government, and enemies having friends
and relatives inside the body polite
endowed with the right of suffrage, and
in every manner sympathizing with them
Hence, l will say, frankly, that l would
have preferred doing nothing rather than
adopt an educa tional or property quail
fication pure and simple, without saving
the rights of those who were already
suffragans, and who could not fulfill
either requirement. Many members Of
the Convention favored the Mississippi,
or preferably, the South Carolina plan. I
am convinced that they formed their judg
ment without considering the vast differ
ence between the cosmopolitan population
of this State and the fairly homogeneous
population of South Carolina and
Mississippi. They, also lost sight
of the fact that there was
vigorous white Republican party in this
State, and one which had gained conSid
cradle strength among the sugar planters
on account of the stand of the Democratic
party toward sugar. The conclusion to
be drawn from the difference between the
circumstances existing in Louisiana, and
those existing in South Carolina and Mis-
sissippi, was that the people of this
State were not prepared to submit to a
registration, where the registering officer
would be supreme because in this State
such registering officer would have
excluded white men as well as negroes. |
believe that the South Carolina plan
would have led to a condition approaching
Civil War in certain parishes in this
State. Apart from this, however, there
is an element of fraud, or of opportunity
for fraud attending both the Mississippi
and the South Carolina plans, and the
people of this State wanted some plan
which would not write fraud, or the posi-
bility of fraud in the Constitution. We
believe that we have got a Constitution
which may be subject to considerable
criticism, but which has, at least, endeav-
ored to solve the question, without re-
sort to fraud. If the courts or Congress
should ever, in any way, hold that our
effort has been an unsuccessful one, then
l believe that nothing is open for us ex-
cept to return to the old system of bull
doing, or worse, about which so much
has been written and said in the past
ten years. If we are driven back to a
system which we have tried to avoid, it
will be because we are forced to it, and |
believe that the conscience of the nation
will protect us. Another point, to which
/ would direct your attention is, that
each succeeding year will diminish the
number of privileged voters, and that the
fact that education is a prerequisite to
the exercise of the right of suffrage will,
in our opinion, guarantee that within a
few years the large mass of white people
in this State will be able to qualify under