of the Southern states was in the hands
of the negroes. The result of turning the states over to ignorant and
untried voters was an enormous increase of debt without corresponding
public improvements or public enterprises. Even the negro governments
themselves began to repudiate these debts and they were almost wholly
repudiated by the whites after returning to power.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the methods by which the white voters
regained and kept control of the states. Admittedly it was through
intimidation, murder, ballot-box "stuffing," and false counting. The
negro vote has almost disappeared, and in more recent years that which
was accomplished through violence is perpetuated through law.
Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and
Virginia have adopted so-called "educational" tests with such adroit
exceptions that white illiterates may vote, but negroes, whether
literate or illiterate, may be excluded from voting. As stated by a
prominent white Virginian, "the negro can vote if he has $300, or if he
is a veteran of the Federal or Confederate armies, or if he is a
profound constitutional lawyer." The fifteenth amendment, by decisions
of the United States Supreme Court, has been rendered inoperative, and
the fourteenth amendment, without helping the negro, for whom it was
designed,[14] has raised up government by private corporations which
never had been thought of as needing an amendment. With these decisions
it may be taken for granted that the negro will not again in the near
future enjoy the privilege of a free ballot.

This is a situation in which the North is as deeply interested as the
South. The South, during the period of slavery, through the privilege of
counting three-fifths of the slaves, enjoyed a predominance in Congress
and in presidential elections beyond its proportion of white voters. The
South now enjoys a greater privilege because it counts all the negroes.
The fourteenth amendment expressly provides for a situation like this.
It says:--

"When the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for
president and vice-president of the United States, representatives in
Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members
of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of
such state, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or