Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1906-11-02
The South and the Thirteenth
Amendment.

Mr.. Henry Peck Fry ''of the Chat
tanooga bar who is perhaps not
~overburdened with other business at
this time of the year, has taken the
southern people as his clients in an
elaborate argument against the thlr-
teenth amendment. One of the side
lights of Mr.. Fry's argument, which
will amuse if not instruct, is the
claim that the thirteenth amend
ment to the constitution is uncon-
st%itutional, and that, therefore, the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments
are not applicable to the negro race.
He holds hat the question involved
in the civil war was whether a state
had the right to secede from the
union and that in the a~rbitrament of
war the south lost the decision on
that question. They had no right to
Secede, therefore they were never out
Of the union constitutiOnally. The
bearing Of this upon the thirteenth
amendmnnt is that the southern
states were not asked to vote upon 1t
and the amendment never received
the votes of three-fourthS of the
states, including the eleven southern
states which were in rebellion. MI.
Fry claims that the mere fact that
they were in rebellion did not take
them out of the union for purposes of
amending the constitution. The
thirteenth amendment provided that
neither slavery nor involuntary servi-
tude should exist except in punish
ment for crime. The fifteenth
amendment declared that the right
to vote or hold office should not be
questioned because of race, color or
previous condition of Servitude. If
the thirteenth amendment was never
adopted, then the fifteenth could
have no reference to the negro. lie
eXclaims that the three amendments
were rammed down the threats OF
the southern states and a never be
recognized by them, though as a
held by the supreme court and their
validity is the same as that OF every
other article of the federal cOnStitu-
ton.
The result of these amendments, in
his opinion. has been the solid south.
The repeal Of the fifteenth amend
ment, in his opinion, would result in
the hocking to the republican stand
ard of a great many southern men OF
the third generation who had no
hand in the war. His appeal is to
the men Of the third generation in
the north to repeal that amendment.
A great many men in the north are
convinced that the wholesale thrust
ing Of the ex-slaveS into the suffrage
was a mistake. 1t would have been
better to have gradually admitted
them as they became educated. But
there is a fundamental difference be-
tween the people of the north and
the south on this question. The
south is determined to forever bar
the negro from the ballot. No mat
ter what his qualifications, the negro
ID lOC W NOIc DCCduoC C4uul ouhloSS
holds up before him ''the hope of soc-
ial equality" This is the bugbear of
the south. The north, on the other
hand, will never give ear to a theory
of a permanently subject race, north
or south. The negro must be either
a citizen or a slave. The country has
decreed at a tremendous cost that he
shall not be a slave. The other al
ternate is that he must be a citizen.
If the south could once make up its
mind to deal justly with the negro,
to give him his rights individually as
he showed himself capable of eXerciS
ing them, some progress might be
made. But the south does not con
cede anything, and so the debate is
apparently fruitless. -Minneapolis
Journal.