The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-20
THE NEGRO IN TIE WAR AMENDMENTS
JOHN WTTHERspooN DuBosE.

ened by men no better than themselves able to govern the land.
 Let us for single moment. examine the sources of the public degredation If, as Justice Swayne insists, the war amend ments are Q new magma, charta," let us see what the new charter does with the forces of society. If we are patient In enquiry and candid with our intelii- gence. we shah see that Section ( of the Fourteenth Amendment constitutes the sole activity of the new magma char ta."
 Section 1. purports to create a techni- cal citizenship of the United States. Mir. Hannis Taylor assures us that the real motive" was to create citizenship, in the African. If that Interpretation be cor rect, as surely 1t Is, the Section. T. Is un- constitutional. A Constitution Is valid l only as an organic. law. If the African,
 the Southern negro. fails to rise to the l status of citizenship" the Section dies in the parturition.
 Section gives the electorate to every male. idiots, maniacs, the unIettered,
 the no property masses. except criminals.
 It is all bombast. No State observes 1t. Section disqualified for office, State or Federal. practically all worthy men then living in the Southern States. The proposition was intensified in its absurd ity by convicting citizens of crime with out trial by robbing the Executive of
 the pardoning power in the cases in- volved and seizing 1t for the arbitrary
 use of Congress.
 Section provides for the safety in perpetuity of the national debt. present l debt and prospective debt.
 Section endows Congress with oll- garchic powers to legislate to enforce the
 previous Sections.
 Under the banking system, founded on
 assets in productive property, the State of Alabama produced say one million bales of cotton. This was near half cen | tury ago. The banking system founded on Section of the Fourteenth Amend ment has for It's basis. and it's only
 basis, Government paper called bonds. The bonds arc secured by taxation. The subjects of taxation are tobacco, spdr-
 ituous. malt and vinous liquors and im- ports that are named in the law. ThIs entire tax. the internal tax. falls upon
 products Of the farm. for example, be- l-sides the tobacco, the corn. rye, barley
 and grapes that the cultivators of the
 soil produce. make up the result of the Internal revenue. Whatever a civilized people imports from another civilized community is paid for by the Importers products of labor. That proposition being true, the cot-
 ton and wheat that is exported pay for the bulk of the imports that are taxed by tariff to secure the paper bonds
 upon which tho national banks thrive. Aiabaina continues to make about one million bales of cotton with about double the population she maintained in the earlier time. cay half century ago. The census of 1880 gave the valle of improved lands at something like sSo.0OO.0O0 greater than the improved lands of 1900 are al- wed by the current census The total value per capita, free and bond, of preper'ty in Alabama, not slaves, in 1850, was SIS. Now 1t is, say, $70.
 The intent of Congress in the Four teefith Amendment is represented in Sec tlol; 4 The Sections i. 2 snds are emer- gency provisos available to the support of Section 1 provided the South should attain Do q threatening influence in the Government.
 by Jefferson when the Bank of the United States was proposed in washing toms first administration. The effect, well advanced in Jaclsnff's. time, was arrested by his action. -s ,. c:
 The present system of banking, lodged safely in Section {. allows the Govern ment to deposit taxes unjustly and op- pressiveiy collected in favored banks. where 1t goes without Interest. Trusts borrow 1t and live on 1t; gamblers on change borrow it and -deplete the land of the fruits of labor.
 The proposition stands ron ahe evidence that Section is the sole Intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that upon this Section a privileged class. namely the benehciaries of the public debt, is created