The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-10-11


amendments to the Constitutions of sew
eral of the Southern States. 1 shall at
tempt no defense of these amendments
but shall simply state briefly what the
amendments of North Carolina is and
what it means
The Constitution of North Carolina as
it now reads provides as follows:
Every person presenting himself for
registration shall be able to read and write
any section of the Constitution in the
English language; and before he shall be
entitled to vote, he shall have paid on
or before the first day of May of the year
in which he proposes to vote, his poll tax
for the previous year as prescribed by
article 8, section l, of the Constitution.
But no male person, who was, on January
/, 1867, or at any time prior thereto, en-
titled to vote under the laws of any State
in the United States, wherein he then
resided, and no lineal descendant of any
such person shall be denied the right to
register and vote at any election in this
State by reason of his failure to possess
the educational qualifications herein pre-
scribed Provided, he shall have registered
in accordance with the terms of this Sec
tion prior to December /, 190S.''
This provision of the Constitution ex-
cludes from the voting population
great number of negroes while preserving
the privilege of all the native born whites
to vote. Those coming of age after 1903
white or black alike, are disfranchised un-
less they can read and write
After the adoption of the Thirteenth
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to
the Constitution of the United States the
Southern States endeavored to secure good,
government out of the conditions which
had been forced upon them. Speaking of
North Carolina / know that an honest,
persistent effort was made to obtain safe
government without resorting to the elimi
nation of negro suffrage. The effect was
failure. We sought in vain to make
the theory OF universal suffrage work out
good government and private virtue, We
found by actual trial that it could not
be DONE 1t could not be done because
as Senator Cullom wisely says in his re-
port of the Hawaiian Commission, "The
American idea Of universal suffrage pre-
supposes that the body of citizens who
are to exercise it in a free and indie
pendent manner have, by inheritance of
education, such knowledge and apprecia-
ton of the responsibilities of free suf-
frage and of full participation in the
sovereignty of the country as to be able
to maintain a Republican form of govern
ment''
The negroes of this State have not this
knowledge either by inheritance or edu-
cation; as a consequence they have been
easily led to form combinations with a
small minority of white men and bring
to the State intolerable government. Gov
eminent can never be better than the
party responsible for it. If those in au-
thority give to any State as good govern
ment as is demanded by a majority of the
party responsible for government, we
have in republic almost a perfect gov
eminent. If the people behind those in
authority are weak, ignorant, readily led
easily deceived, government must needs
be bad. This is so in theory and it turns
out tc be true in practice. No set of
men in any Southern State elected to of
flee by the suffrage of negroes have ever
yet been able to administer government
we'll 1t matters little what their pur-
poses may be, or how high their ideals
may stand, they can not govern well for
the want of an intelligent, virtuous pub
lie opinion behind them. In 1896 the
negroes of North Carolina, in combina-
ton with a small minority of her white
people, secured the State government,
legislative, executive and judicial. After
that government had been in force for
four years, in public address in this
State used this language:
eve had white aman for Governor in
1898. when negroes became intolerably
insolent; when ladies were insulted on the
public streets; when burglary in our chief
city became an every night occurrence;
when 'sleep lay down armed and the
villainous centerbits ground on the wake
full ear in the hush of the moonless
nights; when more guns and pistols were
sold in the State than had been in the
twenty preceding years; when lawlessness
walked the State like pestilence, and
the Governor and our two Senators were
afraid to speak In a city of twenty-five
thousand inhabitants. 1t is the negro
behind the officer, and not the officer only
that constitutes negro government
I predicted then that with the dis
would be restored to the State and free
dom of speech become common posses
sion of our people. Within less than two
years after the elimination of the negrL
from suffrage one of the Senators, who
was afraid to speak in Wilmington in
1898, held a joint discussion in that city
with a political opponent, receiving not
only respectful attention but frequent APP
plause from men who would not have
permitted him to speak in 1898.
Less than twenty thousand negroes
now vote in this State. There are per-
haps one hundred and twenty thousand
male adult negroes in the State. The
number who can vote will increase with
the years, but the increase will be gradu-
al and will be founded on intelligence.
Each negro who comes to the ballot will
feel that he has won his right to vote by
preparation for it, and will set value on
the suffrage. He will use it more wisely
than mis- father did. Already those who
can vote are beginning to exercise the
suffrage with more freedom. The intel
ligence and virtuous among the negroes
when all could vote were afraid to