The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1904-09-21

disease, just as tne nueueu cAeeA
and quickened pulse only point to
the inward fever that is consuming
the patient. The roots of the disease
lie amid the passions and errurs of
the Reconstruction period when full
citizenship was suddenly thrust
upon race of slaves totally unpre-
pared for such great moral and
political responsibility. We are
only gathering the second harvest
from the seed then sown. The first
harvest was in that cad day when
the South to maintain it's civilization
had to ignore and defy the constitu-
ton of the United States. We are
still struggling with the nearby
effects of our Civil war and the
heavy burden put upon both races
is beyond their strength, for new
consequences are continually crop
ping up in national life.
T read with great interest a very
thoughtful article by Mr.. Thomas,
of OHIO, published iu the North
American Review, in which be ad-
vocates the repeal of certain por-
tions of the Reconstruction amend
ments to the constitution. I do not
know, but it lis possible that we
may have yet to 60 back to this
question where Lincoln left it and
Mckinley took it up, and as nearly
as possible right every wrong. The
constitutional restrictions of suffrage
in the States must be in harmony
with the spirit and letter Of the
constitution of the United States;
80 long as they are rot it gives the
entire machinery sinister twitch.
Then we can safely rest upon the
only enduring foundation by making
the true test of citizenship moral and
intellectual worth applying every
restriction fairly and honestly with
out regard to race or color. The
race question would disappear from
politics and when it disappears
there it will elsewhere, and not be-
fore. The standard of citizenship
would be so high that instead of the
ballot box being regarded as q dan
ger, it would become the true safe
guard of property and liberty. For
30 years, forced by these conditions
in the South to vote as unit, there
has been no room for the discussion
and settlement of honest differences
of opinion. The ballot box at
general election has merely been a
machine registering the color Of the
voter, not his political opinions.
When you take into consideration
the mighty forces at work and the
inevitable trend of events [ cannot
see how any thinker who believes in
God and recognizes that uplifting,
evolutionary force, ever at work
pushing nations from one epoch into
another, can have confidence in the
makeshifts which surround US or
believe that they can long endure.
T know not what the immediate
future may have in store, but [ be-
lieve in our country and I know that
the democratic ideas upon which it
is founded are surely working US
toward that condition, where liberty
and justice will be the birthright OF
each unit composing what We call
government. I know that the race,
labor nor any other of the great is
sues of the day can ever be settled
except in harmony with the catholic
spirit Of the age, and that in time
every false doctrine and fimsy pre-
text which impedes this onward
march will be crushed out of exis-
tence. Conditions are likely to grow
much worse before they get better,
On the pr rinciple that out of chaos
ed. If some power could
9 politicians Of the north