The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-28
AN ALABAMA STATESMAN.
Governor Jones's Letter Warmly
 Commended.
Boston Transcript.

Boston Transcript.
 Ex-Governor Thomas G. Jones of AL abama has recently published in The Montgomery Advertiser a remarkable letter in which he discusses what the Constitutional Convention in that State may do and may not do according to the limitations set by the Federal Con- stitution. It is an exceedingly able pa per, dispassionate, broad-minded and statesmanlike, and the most significant treatment of the attempted disfran- chisement of the colored race that hos yet distinguished a man of his promi- nent political affiliations In the South It ought to act as a check upon any reckless and revolutionary action that may have been proposed, but whether 1t does or not it makes responsibility for such action all the greater. He does not speak from prejudice or from sen- timent, but analyses the situation as 1t undoubtedly Is.
 First, he considers the bold proposl- tion that has been made to take the hull by the horns" and frame Consti- tuition disfranchising the negro in so many words. 'The consequence of such action." he says. "if undertaken by a State are hard to be forsseeR. It would provoke aggressive action, not only to the powers which the Constitution fur. nishes for its enforcement. but array behind them the full moral sentiment of the country. and all the interests which are imperiled if the Constitution can be plotted out and disregarded by the act of a State. The Eff teerth Amendment Is the latest exposi- ton of the supreme will of the people and relates to a political condition far different, in constitutional sense, from the State action referred to in the former amendment" Another proposi- ton has been to name the classes en- titled to suffrage so as to exclude the vast body of negroes. Of this plan Governor Jones says:
 Ut is idle to contend that scheme of enumeration and chasing of groups so as to compose them altogether or nearly so. of whites who are permitted 10 vote, not because of the possession of some qualification to vote, but mercy because they are classed in such groups when its practical operation is such as to di6franchiSe the vast majority of the blacks-is not a violation of the prohibition against excluding the ne- gro from the suffrage on account of his race, or because he Is negro. It is accomplishing indirectly what can not lawfully be accomplished directly. Such action cannot be upheld on the theory that these groups, so selected as to be composed almost entirely of white persons are possessed of heredi- tary fitness for suffrage-not possessed by the negro as race. and it is, there fore, permissible to exclude the latter. If the whites, as they certainly do. pos sess hereditary fitness for suffrage be- cause of their antecedents and ..nces- try, what is that but a race character istic? If men are excluded or admitted to suffrage on account of characteristics or inherited traits of the race, what is that but comforting or denying suffrage on account of race? What is it in its last analysis but a discrimination be- tween the races on account of race? In framing a Constitution to avoid col lision with prohibition in the Federal Constitution, we cannot effect or as guise our purpose by phrases or jug gling with words.."
 Under present circumstances he would not anticipate anything worse from negro disfranchisement in any