It is easy to see that the amendment is not intended to
disfranchise the ignorant, but to stop short with the Negro; to deny
to the illiterate black man the right of access to the ballot box and
yet to leave the way wide open to the equally illiterate whites. In
our opinion the policy thus indicated is both dangerous and unjust. We
expressed the same opinion in connection with the Louisiana laws, and
we see no reason to amend our views in the case of North Carolina.
The proposed arrangement is wicked. It will not bear the test of
intelligent and impartial examination. We believe in this case, as in
that of Louisiana, that the Federal Constitution has been violated,
and we hope that the people of North Carolina will repudiate the
blunder at the polls.
We realize with sorrow and apprehension that there are elements at the
South enlisted in the work of disfranchising the Negro for purposes
of mere party profit. It has been so in Louisiana, where laws were
enacted under which penniless and illiterate Negroes cannot vote,
while the ignorant and vicious classes of whites are enabled to retain
and exercise the franchise. So far as we are concerned--and we believe
that the best element of the South in every State will sustain our
proposition-we hold that, as between the ignorant of the two races,
the Negroes are preferable. They are conservative; they are good
citizens; they take no stock in social schisms and vagaries; they do
not consort with anarchists; they cannot be made the tools and agents
of incendiaries; they constitute the solid, worthy, estimable yeomanry
of the South.
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