crimination or recrimination. Over the question of the extension of slavery the Civil War came, and that contest developed a heroism on both sides, in the people from the North and the people from the South, that evokes the admiration of all Americans for American courage, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. But when slavery was abolished by the war the excision of the cancer left a wound that must necessarily be a long time in healing. Nearly 5,000,000 slaves were freed; but 5 per cent. of them could read or write; a much smaller percentage were skilled laborers. They were but as children in meeting the stern responsibilities of life as free men. As such they had to be absorbed into and adjusted to our civilization. It was a radical change, full of discouragement and obstacles. Their rights were declared by the war Amendments, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth. The one established their freedom; the second their citizenship and their rights to pursue happiness and hold property; and the third their right not to[Pg 11] be discriminated against in their political privileges on account of their color or previous condition of servitude. [Pg 11] I am not going to rehearse the painful history of reconstruction, or what followed it. I come at once to the present condition of things, stated from a constitutional and political standpoint. And that is this: That in all the Southern States it is possible, by election laws prescribing proper qualifications for the suffrage, which square with the Fifteenth Amendment and which shall be equally administered as between the black and white races, to prevent entirely the possibility of a domination of Southern state, county, or municipal governments by an ignorant electorate, white or black. It is further true that the sooner such laws, when adopted, are applied with exact equality and justice to the two races, the better for the moral tone of state and community concerned. Negroes should be given an opportunity equally with whites, by education and thrift, to meet the requirements of eligibility which the State Legislatures in their wisdom shall lay down in order to secure the safe exercise of the electoral franchise. The Negro should ask nothing other than an equal chance to qualify himself for the franchise, and when that is granted by law, and not denied by executive discrimination, he has nothing to complain of. The proposal to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposition would utterly fail in a
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