The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-04

' ! $ the only working repre-
 assembly. Since the begin ,e French Revolution nearly : sl 7e states of continental Europe l Ii ,. o .z lr,ixed national assemblies af- ! te. n model of the English pariia- 1 lt ln q spirit of conscious imita- l ,t sedIess for me 70 tell you that ! 2, sr. tate in this Union, from the
 ,-.-c, reproduction of the English
 daln. Every State legislature, ev-
 institutional convention Is mere
 r-iniature of the English rariia- 1 u,,ef. Do not fear that am going 10 f ,yt. -,olitics. I speak of something .,s se,. than politics, of something that
 -ttanJ concerns the future life or the
 .o, l,ern people. shall speak 70 you. as Jafferson Davis would rpeak IT nc
 re present now. at a time even 1rote To,,s al than those sateful days or reD-
 V 1881 The great struggle or ms lire was involved with the question or
 he relation of the African race 70 | +ha- white reonle of the Soutn.
 Relation of Blacks to Whites.
 shall therefore venture to speak | briefly upon that theme and in ms
 name wish to remind you that from
 the beginning the English repre- | sentative system rested upon the prIn. ciple that only the few had the rignt
 to vote. From the beginning tne prm ciple was settled that citizenship nao m legal connection whatever with the right to vote. The best proof can give YOU of that fact is that at the | time of tho passage of the Reform Bill of 1s32, only about 100000 electors In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had the right to vote. Ine fact that the English electorate mas since grown to about S'0oo'VoV only
 proves that sovereign state mas .ne right to grant or withhold, the sur frage according to circumstances.
 The first great civil war by which the English commonwealth was ever distracted was that which occupied the thirty or forty years preceding the dis- covery of America by Columbus. Then it was that brother was arrayeo against brother, family against family. friend against friend. The dynastie struggle thus waeed for the possession of a crown was bloody, prolonged ana remorseless. During the course or IL an incident occurred. of which I read when a boy in one or Bulwer's novels, that made an irdeflible impression upon my memory. When the King-maker, Warwick. was at the height of his power as conqueror, young Rfnsman of the House of Neville, who had tied his fortunes to the fallen cause, came to his mighty cousin and asked help of him. After Warwick had heard his touching story he explained his power lessness to serve him, great as he was, by the lament that 'no mans shadow is broad enough to shelter the victims of a fallen cause" You old veterans know what that means. You returned to your desolated fields under the shadow of defeat and began again the struggle of life without the fostering hand of any paternal government to help you. The only pensions you have ever received have been paid from the scanty hoard of your political mother, the State of Alabama. In war and in peace let us stand close by her. Let us guard with our lives, if need be, her natural right to preserve her race instincts and to govern herself.
 Wars of English People.
 The second great civil war in the his tory of the English people was not for the possession of a crown. but for the subjection of the irresponsible powers of a crown to the yoke of the English democracy. The new conception of lib- erty. religious and political, born of the Renaissance and the Reformation, was entirely incompatible with the Tu- dor theory of government by council. When the new spirit of liberty thus fostered entered into the progressive | middle classes the result was the Puri- l tan revolution of 1640, which culminated in the Cromweilian Republic. At an | early stage of that conflict, during the | reign of James l., the seeds of the | English Constitution were sown deep in | the soil of the New World; and in | the next reign, during the eleven years l that preceded the meeting of the Long l Parliament, 1t is estimated that 200 | epigrant ships crossed the Atlantic | bearing to their new homes in the l West 10000 Englishmen whose first | thought was to find in the American wilderness freedom from the religious persecution Laud was relentlessly en- forcing against them. The Puritan settlers on the shores of New Eng land, who came in the main from the coast towns of the mother country, re- | produced in the new land the system of town government with which they | had been familiar In the old. The | Cavalier settlers upon the shores of | Virginia. made up in the main of Eng fish country gentlemen who had never lived in towns, reproduced at first only | the system of county government ade- quate for all their wants. The funda- mental differences, both in temper and | organization, between the two entirely | distinct sets of colonies. whose found ing was so actively promoted by the second civil war nf 1640. gave rise in the New World to the third civil war of 1860.
 The Federal Constitution.
 We have passed already through two important stages of constitutioDal change incident to the overthrow of the Southern Confederacy. The emanci- patton of the African race, or as pre- fer to think of it, thc emancipation of the white people of the South from an obsolete and unprogressive economic system, was embodied in the Thir- teenth Amendment. As no mistake WAS made in that great constitutional act no call has ever been made for it's revision or reversal. 1 have no fault to find with that part of the Four teenth Amendment which. after creat- ing a new federal citizenship, extended it's privileges to tkc freshly enamel pated race with the equal protection of the laws. Prior to the adoption of tha. amendment there was no such thing as q federal or national citizen ship.
 While the first section of the Four teenth Amendment by defining such a citizenship thereby supplied a serious deficiency in the logical symmetry of the Constitution of 17S7. it did not at tempt tc confer the suffrage upon any one because that right is not one of the necessary privileges of a citizen of the Tinted States The nower to con- l