The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-25

hopelessly unfit for this important power. It was thrust on the negro in hot and vengeful haste, without Ire vtous preparation--not to elevate UT protect him. but to humiliate and ce- grade us. It created an epoch of cline. corruption and misrule rtver before known in any civilized land. It filled our halls of legislation ith men to whom honesty was an unkaovn vir- tue. It elevated to the bench men without legal training. to whom Blackstone was a myth and Kent a meaningless name. It filled the land With crime. intensified racial prejudice, demoralized our labor and retarded our growth and prosperity. It hinder ed immigration. rendered life and property insecure and allayed the in- vestment of cap|al and the develop ment of our marvellous resources. 1t has prevented any division of our peo- ple on economic or political questions. | Yepressed freedom of thought and de- bauched our suffrage. To prevent a recurrence of the frightful misgovern. ment which followed reconstruction. 1t has forced our people to adopt meth | ods to retain honest government which were repugnant to their consciences and which have debased and lowered | our moral tone. No king. however des- potic, would have subjected his sub | jects to the peril. the ignominy, the moral and financial e1ln which has walked in the train of this unwise ex- | pertinent. As the editor of The Chica- go Chronicle recently said: ,"The hfs- tory of the world may be searched in vain for a parallel to the spirit of savagery which inflicted upon de- feated and impoverished people the un- speakably barbarous rule of servile I to1 O Ua A a distinguished English statesman re- gently wrote, ITO nearly all Europeans, such as, step as the grant of the suf- frage to the negroes en bloc, seemed then. and still seems nnonstrous."
 After over a quarter of century's experience, we know that 1t Is as much failure today as 1t was the hour 1t was first f1laugurated. Hence I but voice the sentiment. not only of the white people of Alabama, but of the intelligent, unbiased judgment of the North and of the civilized world when denounce the fifteenth amendment as not simply political blunder, but a crime--a crime against the white people of the South--a crime against the black people of the Sonth--a crime against local elf-goverpment and the sovereign rights of the States. For I am sure the time has come when we can challenge the criticism and the favorable verdict of the civilized world to whom we can show and who have already seen and known that we have tried in humiliation and under pro- test. but still in patience. the experi- | ment of unlimited suffrage. which heedlessness. animosity and hate put upon us. That we have tasted its bit- terness. drained the cup of hatred and empericism to its dregs, inhaled it's poison until the State reels from its effects, and that 1t has been demon strated after a third of a century that this investiture of the unqualified ele- ment of our population with the sov- ereign robe of suffrage was costly and a ghastly failure-a crime against us as well as the negro.
 | In the dark days of reconstruction | Thomas A. Hendricks declared in the Congress of the United States that the | fifteenth amendment was violation of the original compact between the States and changed the nature of our government. Its adoption was secured by force and fraud and in the States of the South It's ratification was com- pelled by military authority. The pre- | text that it was necessary to secure | the results of the war is not sustained by history, for Congress had solemnly | declared that the war for the Union was not waged to free the slaves, and Abraham Lincoln had said, II did not at any time say that I was in favor of negro suffrage. I declared against It.. I am not Tn favor of negro citizen ship" This opinion 1t is said he never changed. The impartial student of history knows that this amendment would never have been proposed had 1t not been confidently believed that it's adoption would perpetuate the rule of the Republican party. Can anyone at this day, who has studied the his tory of that period stand in this pres erce and contend that this amendment would have been adopted had 1t been then supposed that 1t would result in the South casting a solid Democratic vote.
 MT. President, what is the situation l that confronts us in Alabama? We have here two distinct races, one two thousand years in advance of the other
 representing the highest type of mod ern civilization. the other race whose ancestors were hundred years ago naked savages, living on the banks of the Congo or Niger.
 The records of history are largely narratives of mans advancement from barbarian to civilization. The great dominant white races of the earth have been thousands of years in reach ing their present state. of develop ment The advance has been by slow processes, long and laborious strug- gles, and not by sudden leaps and bounds. Every step taken seems nec- essary in the march to the present de- velopment. For two thousand years while the white races have been pro- | gressing. the negro in Africa remained stationery, as uncivilized today as he | was before the birth of Christ. In the | case of the great Asiatic and European | races we find that the early stages of development are lost in the mists of antiquity. From the days of the Ro- man Empire to the present hour, pe- | rusal of history shows that advance ment and progress has been slow, gradual. laborious but sts.Idy, devel- opment depending largely on the pro- gress of the arts sciences and good government. With the progress of learning and material prosperity there has come a growth SO to speak of the human mind until today the write races have reached their highest type of culture and development. Yet a study of the African races back to the days of the Pharoahs of Egypt show no such progress. So the singular condition exists in the South of the most primi- tive. rudimentary race living side by | side with the most cultured and high ly developed It has been truly said that not greater is the interval which separates the clipped fiints of the stone age and the maxim gun of today. | ~ A Aa