The age-herald., 1901-05-26
Speech of lion. John B. Knox Before
 Alabama Constitutional Convention

places of power and responsibility, for which he is wholly united, either by ca pacity or experience.
 When 1t comes, however, to dealing with the negro, in domestic service, or in bus mess way, the Southerner Is infinitely more indulgent to him than his Northern compatriot.
 There comes to us a well authenticated story from Kentucky, of an old darkey who, after the war, influenced by the de- fusion that the only friends the negro had were in the North, wandered up into llli- nois, hoping to find an easy fortune. But here he soon found, that while the people had much to say to him about the evils or slavery and the destiny of his race, every one with whom he did business held him to strict accountability. Trained, as he was to the slow movement of the mule, in the Southern corn-field and cotton patch, he could not handle the complicated ma chinery, or keep pace with the quicker methods of farming in the west. and so he , was soon cast adrift When he asked for help he was told to go to work, and so he wandered, foot-sore and weary, back through Indiana and Ohio until he reached again the old Southern plantation in Ken lucky. Finding the planter comfortably seated upon his veranda, the old darkey approached, hat in hand, and asked for something to eat.
 
 | you stopping here for? Go into the kitch- en and tell the cook to give you something | to eat"
 Before God, master,'' the old darkey | said, grinning from ear to ear, them's the sweetest words I'se heard since I left old Dixie"
 The old man was at home at last He was among people who understood him, and whom he understood.
 White Supremacy by Law.
 But if we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law-not by force or fraud. If you teach your boy that 1t is right to buy a vote, it is an easy step for him to learn to use money to bribe or cor rupt officials or trustees of any class If you teach your boy that it is right to steal votes, 1t is an easy step for him to believe that it Is right to steal whatever he may need or greatly desires. The re- suit of such an influence will enter every branch of society; 1t will. reach your bank cashiers, and effect positions of trust in every department; 1t will ultimately enter your courts, and effect the administration of justice
 | I submit it to the intelligent judgment of this Convention that there Is no higher duty resting upon us, as citizens and as delegates, than that which requires us to embody in the fundamental law such pro- S%A~ sanctity of the ballot in every portion of the State.
 The Justification for whatever manipula- tion of the ballot that has occurred in this State has been the menace of negro domi- nation. After the war, by force of Fed eral bayonets, the negro was placed in control of every branch of our govern ment Inspired and aided by unscrupu- lous white men, he wasted money, created debts, increased taxes until 1t threatened to amount to confiscation of our property. While in power, and within a few years, he increased our State debt from a nomi- nal figure to nearly thirty millions of dol lars. The right of revolution is always left to every people. Being prostrated by the effects of war. and unable to take up arms in their own defense, in some DOT tions of this state, white men, greatly in the minority 1t is said, resorted to strat- egem-used their greater intellect to over come the greater numbers of their black opponents. If so, such course might be warranted when considerer as the right | of revolution, and as an act of necessity | for self-preservation. But a people can not always live in state of revolution. The time comes. when if they would be a