The age-herald., 1901-06-04
THE SOLUTION OF THE FRANCHISE
 QUESTION A DIFFICULT PROBLEM
(Continued from First Page.)

cle of the constitution, no man can for | see. If the State ordained in terms, in | it's constitution, the disfranchisement by | race of citizens of the United States in | direct defiance of the fourteenth amend | ment, Congress at some time might claim, and would have the power, to de- | clare that the state had not a repub- | lcan form of government, and proceed | to .'guarantee by such corrective legis- lation' as 1t might deem necessary, even | to the extent of overtfrowing, for the | time being the state government, or of- | f1cial elected under void suffrage pro- | visions. If 1t should attempt to do SO, support for it's action can be found in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the noted cases of
 Luther v. Bordeau and Texas vs White. In the latter case, Chief Justice Chase upheld on such grounds the measures | taken with the southern states after the
 war. The proposed plan of taking the bull by the horns will not do on legal considerations, to say nothing of others of great importance, and 1t would involve the state or It's people in disastrous consequences.
 It is urged by others, who do not wish Ito take the bull by the horns" that the desired results can be accomplished by provisions naming certain classes as en-
 
 operating on their face on all, so ad- ministered, as to strike down the great mass of negroes without touching the great body of the whites. It suffices to say that under the decisions of the Su- preme Court, a classification of per sons entitled to suffrage, where mem bership of. a class constitutes the qualffi- cation. which would take in only small portion of the negroes and let in the mass 1.F7 si1C1 tha descendants of persons who could write in 1861, and the descendants of soldiers in certain wars. if 1t amounts to a substantial denial Of suffrage to the mass of negroes, While giving it to the mass of whites, would be violative of the constitution. On such questions the Supreme Court has repeat edly declared that the natural and or dinary consequence of the enforcement of the law-no matter what its words are--determine whether it violates or con- forms to the constitution, and that it will look behind the form to ascertain the substance.
 The fact that there may be a few ne- groes in each class of persons given the rightbwhen class constitutes the qualifica- ton, will not prevent the measure from falling under the censure of the constitu- tion If the practical result is to disfran- chise the negro as a race. The constitu- ton prevents the State from dealing with negroes as a race, whether directly or in- directly and compels it to deal with them as an individual The State can not pre- scribe any qualifications for suffrage which prevents the negro from voting If he possesses the needed requirements and 1t can not make birth, ancestry or race one of the qualifications
 It is idle to contend that a scheme of enumeration and chasing of groups so as to compose them altogether, or nearly SO. of whites, who are permitted to vote, not because of the possession of some general qualification to vote, but merely because they are classed in such groups-when its practical operation Is such as to disfran- chise the vast majority of the blacks-is not violation of the prohibition against excluding the negro from the suffrage on account of his race, or because he is negro. It is accomplishing indirectly what can not be accomplished directly. Such action, can not be upheld on the theory that these groups, so selected as to be composed almost entirely of white per- sons are possessed of hereditary fitness for suffrage, not possessed by the negro as a race, and that 1t is, therefore, permissible to exclude the latter, while giving suffrage to the former. If the whites, as they cer- tainly do, possess as a class hereditary fitness for suffrage, because of their ante cedents and ancestry, what is that but a race characteristic? If men are excluded or admitted to suffrage on account of race characteristics, or inherited traits of the race-what Is that but conferring or de- nying suffrage on account of race? What is 1t in it's last analysis. but a discrimina- ton between the races on account of race?
 In framing constitution, with a view to keep clear of the prohibition in the Federal Constitution, we can not disguise 2 or effect our purpose by any mere jug gling with words.
 Some nither wish "to take the bull by the horns nor to put in the classifications of persons or their descendants as quali- fications, so as to include the bulk of the whites and disfranchise the bulk of the nebro race. but insist that complications with the Federal Constitution can be avoided by. putting in a clause which. on its face. is unobjectionable, and mak- ing provision for administration, by which registrars or other officials may practically disfranchise all the blacks and admit all the whites. They insist this is feasible under the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. in the case of Williams vs. Mississippi, 160 U S. Supreme Court reports, 213; and is justifiable in view of the great evils to be corrected, and the best solution of the difficulty
 The Williams case has been greatly misunderstood and misquoted. The Su- preme Court of the United States on an apeal from. state court, involving a right claimed under the constitution, on- ly considers the particular clause of the constitution which complainant sets up as having been vilated by denial of the right claimed. Not a word is said in the opinion about the effect of the XIV amendment The court. in fact decided in that case only that the Mississippi law was fair on it's face. and that there was