tainments--but because in the Southern states the Negro
abounds in the greatest numbers, and because upon her fertile soil he
was once held in bondage. As a slave, the Negro came to be regarded as
one whose inferiority must continue from generation to generation. The
Civil War brought freedom in its wake, and one of its results was to
clothe the emancipated servitor with the full vestments of
citizenship. By proclamation and legislation, the ex-slave was made
the political equal of his white master, and if numbers are to be
counted the slave class became the superior force in the reconstructed
Southland. That the new Negro citizen was honest and well-meaning, no
one doubts. It must be confessed, however, that the masses were
ignorant of the high responsibilities charged to them, and it is but
natural that many mistakes were unwittingly made. Indeed, the wonder
is not that many errors could be laid at the door of the amateur
"statesman," lawmakers and suffragists, but that more grievous
blunders were not made. The result, all things considered, is highly
creditable to the heads and hearts of the leaders of that trying
epoch. The masters did not take kindly to the seeming domination of
their former bondmen. The anomalous situation was made infinitely
worse by the gross frauds and maladministration of Northern white
carpet-baggers, who misled the trusting Negro into false channels and
bred in the minds of the landowners and former slave-magnates a bitter
hatred for all that savored of the Negro and the party that they held
responsible for their humiliation. Readers of history are familiar
with the stirring scenes that went abreast with the efforts of the
whites to free themselves from the consequences of the war. With the
accession of President Hayes came the restoration of the democracy to
local control in the Southern states. All are acquainted with the
"reign of terror" and the depredations of red-shirted adventurers and
night-riders. The instinct of white supremacy solidified that section,
and later came the era of lynchings. General disorder prevailed
wherever the racial problem was brought actively to the fore.

Of late we have heard much of "constitutional conventions," and the
press has been filled with arguments pro and con as to the necessity
for eliminating the Negro from politics or abridging his right to
vote. There has been going on for years a seething cauldron, with the
Negro as the burning impulse; but evi