The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-25

to assume that they were unwilling to prescribe a rule of such tyranny and disaster, and that its adoption by the requisite number of States would have been rendered doubtful if such pur- pose had found positive and ar bitrary expression therein.
 Mir. President, as we have seen the first Section of the Fourteenth Amend men: made all negroes citizens of the United States and of the States of their r .s.den nee. The Amendment which fol- low ed prohibited the de nial or abridge- mart of that vote for three certain specified reasons, CT either of them, and for those only. For any ether reason their right to vote may be denied or abridged. You cannot say that because the effect of our plan will be to re- J strict the right of the negro to vote that it necessarily violates the terms or spirit of that amendment. For with the same force of reasoning you could say that an educational or property qualification imposed en all alike would result in denying to the great mass Of negroes the right to vote, and was therefore unconstitutional. If the ef- feet or result of law restricting suf- frage was to determine It's construc- tion it would have been held that the effect of the provisions found in the
 
 voter to be able to understand or give an Intelligent explanation of the Con- stitution initiated against this article of the Federal Constitution. It would have been held that the laws of Mas sachuetts whch imposed an educational qualification, of Rhode Island, which demanded property qualification. were in conflict with the Fifteenth Amendment. In the one case it could I l~n R,,l1x &I< IA1- Ar | greater part of the negro race in those States were disfranchised because they on account of their poverty or ignor- ance were unable to vote. Yet, in the | debates in Congress and in every judi | cial construction of the two amend ments the presence and continual ex- istence of these and other restrictions on suffrage in the laws and constitu- tions of other American States show that they are not antagonistic to the two amendments. that the question of their violation of the amendments is not determnable and has not been de- termined in a single instance by the | effect or result of the restrictions im- l posed upon the voting of the negro race.
 I therefore assert that the State can | impose any restriction 1t may see fit on suffrage which Is not directed in hostility to the negro race, not i'm posed on account of his race, color or previous condition of servitude and will 1 not when tested by enlightened judi cial construction be disturbed. If we abridge or deny the negro the right to vote, we take this action not in hostil- l lty to him as race, not on account or his color or previous condition of servitude, but because his exercise of suffrage without restriction make it unsafe to the life of the State and detrimental to all the interests of the people among whom he resides. We can deny the right of suffrage to the natives of other countries, or extend the age of majority from 21 to 90 years, for is has been decided that the Fif- | teenth amendment was intended to protect the negro race alone. No, MT. President. we are not in this hour of our States deadly peril seeking to wreak any vengeance upon the negro, or venting any i'll will on account of his race or color; but we are restrict ing our suffrage for the sake of the | life of our Government, for it's honest and faithful adm .nistration, for the sake Of our civilization, for public morals, fo: personal integrity. for the eman- | cipation of all that is good and pure among us from that bondage of the soul and of thought which has been forced to participate in wrong doing from fear of greater evil. We per- form this duty for virtue, for decency, for religion, for liberty, for life itself. The enfranchisement of the negro race furnished enc of the darkest chapters in the history of this Repub- He. When Lee laid down his sword at ApDomattox the South recognized that the abolition of slavery was enc or the Inevitable results of it's failure l to establisn a separate and independ- ent Government. 1t submitted loyaily to this gigantic confiscation of proper ty. which it had acquired under the sacred guarantee of the Federal com- pact. Following swiftly upon the abo- lition of slavery, came the enfranchise- ment oi the negro race. The shackels were scarcely stricken from his linn bs before the ballot was placed in his hands? Not only was he clothed with the right of suffrage. but he was elevated by military force to the control of the States of the South, condition If af- fairs more humiliating than that to which any free and enlightened peo- pie had ever been subjected.
 Then ensued q carnival of crime. of robbery and jobbery without parallel Tn history. A horde of most Venal and | corrupt adventurers gathered from ev- cry haunt of vice and crime, swarmed into the South, and by appeals to the passions. the credulty, the prejudices and the ignorance of the blacks, or ganized them into a compact political party, and by aid of federal power, secured control of every department of the State governments in all of the States of the South.
 The leadership, of course fell to the l white Adventurers. whose scanty stock or portable property won for them the name of carpet -baggers. They orga- nized the negroes, tempered with the l electoral returns, stuffed the ballot boxes. secured all the lucrative offices | increased salaries. devised the various l methods by which taxation was in- | creased and imposed on the impover- ished States of the South a burden of debt which destroyed public credit and bankrupted the public treasuries. In speaking of this period. Mir. Brice, in his celebrated work. The American Commonwealth" says: | But as the voting power lay with | those who were wholly unfit for citi- zenship. and had no interest as tax payers in good government, as the leg 1 islatures were reckless and corrupt, the | judges for the most part subservlsnt, | the federal military officers bound to support what purported to be the con stituticnal authorities of the State, l Congress distant and little inclined to listen to complaints of those wn, m it | had mistrusted as rebels, greed was I n ftn md I,a ,Fs.ka