The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-31

of Q couQuer00 provtnce, bocauae that people have risen In their manhood and said that fraud and perjury shaii dis appear forever from its limits? Will they do it? An. gentlemen, even if they dared attempt It the voice-the still but potent voice--from Wan Street that sent the flag to Porto Rico. hut held up the Constitution when 1t un- dertook to follow the flag, will say to those people that attempt it. Murder CTS. stay thy hands!" and 1t will be stayed.
 We are old further, gentlemen of the Convention. that if we establish this plan. the negro will leave the South. will leave Alabams. Where will he go? Will he 90 to Mississippi, to Louisiana, to South Carolina or North Carolina? those States with the precise condition that he occupies in Alabama. Will he so to Illinois? Some of them went there but yesterday, and they had to be guarded in their cars with shot guns, until the engine could fire up and bring them back to the South. (Ap- plause). Will they go to Africa? The failure of the Nineteenth Century was the Republic of Liberia, and. however much of philanthropic money there may be north of our borders. there Is u0t NuOu8H tO cBt1OiteH d NOiOhy VI AN." 900, 900 beings and maintain them until their learn the arts of free government. They will not so. The old negro upon the Southern plantation and his son cares nothing for the right of suffrage. The majority, and . vast majority of them, are content to stay where they have stayed since they were born. and arc content to labor 90 long as they are met with justice and fair dealing, and those who may want to go. who may feel upon them the awful repson- sibility which declares that they must participate in government, If they go and leave the others, they will estab- fish rather a period of happiness and contentment than . period of distress ar disaster.
 But we are told, Mr. President. that if we adopt this scheme. these Regis tration Boards will destroy the rights of the people. have been surprised at the distrust which has been evi- denced in this Convention of the peo- ple and their officers. When we had the Executive Article up. 1t seemed to be the supreme purpose of the Convention to hedge around the Governor and the State officers with legislation, upon the theory that they were all not entitled to the trust and confidence of the peo- ple. When the Legislative Article came around. we found the same dis trust the men selected by the people to represent them In the making of laws, and. when we come to thls Elec- ton Article, the same spirit Of dis- trust comes up. and says we cannot trust these men to be fair; We cannot trust these men to be honoranle. is republican government a failure? If we cannot trust the Executive Depart ment if we cannot trust the Legisia- tive Department. if we cannot trust the men who are to manage this regis tration, then popular government must be on it's decline, because the people must have gone so wrong that they select men for public ofiice unworthy of the great trust imposed upon them. and we are ready. if that be true, to adopt the suggestion that came but a few days ago from Australia that our government in America had failed and that 1t was best for us to once more accept the sovereignty of the British Empire. do not believe that free government is failure. The very movement that produced this Conven- tion shows that men are capable of self government. Here when after the wa: these people had been stricken down, their right to vote had been taken away, the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments had been passed for the purpose and with the obiec: of putting the black heel upon the white throat,--these people here said you have undertaken to tie us down by every means that you can. but by the blood of our Caucasian an cestors who fought and secured this land in which we live, We will rule 1t by tho shotgun or by fraud. For twen- ty-fva years they have ruled h. By the same token they could have ruled I: fo. twenty-five or fifty years more, and yet because that fraud was wrong, because they did not want their chill dren to grow up in that atmosphere. because they wanted to establish pur- ity in morals in public and private life, these people rising "from the stepping stone of their dead selves to higher things" declare that with all this power we will have a Constitutional Convention and take away the possi- bility of fraud in Alabama forever, though 1t means our own defeat. (Ap- plause.) Tell me that with such @ people free government Is dead? Tell me there Is patriotism in men like that, and tell you, gentlemen of the Convention, it took patriotism like that which sustained Washington and the Continental Army amid the gloom ana despondency and snow and Ice of Valley Forge, and made possible the splendid triumph of Yorktown. It took a pa- triotism like that which sustained the men of 1872, who, notwithstanding the disasters that laid waste their country and devoted their capital to the flames. enabled them to hurl back from the soil of freedom the red cohorts of Brit ish invasion. It took patriotism like that which sustained Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis upon the historic held ot Buena Vista and sent Scott in
 triumph to tread unchallenged the halls of the MontezumaS. It took patriotism
 like that which sent Pickett to the top of Missionary Ridge. and enabled Han cock to hold those historic heights at Gettysburg. A patriotism such as that must live forever, and keep free gov ernment alive so long as the people are true to the principles of their country and the traditions of their race.
 Now. gentlemen, I am not here, and We are not here, to disfranchIse the negro race alone. we are here for higher purpose and a nobler end. That purpose and that end Is to stablish pure elections in Alabama. was born In this State; l expect to die within her borders, and wish to contribute all that can or have to her welfare and her prosperity, and feel--I feel it in my very bones-that when have voted to put upon the people of this State tho plan of the majority of this Committee, will have done all that man can do to insure her peace pros- perity and power. Applause. When