elligent and the
property-holders will eventually grasp the reins of political or civil
power and give, as far as they can, equilibrium to the unbalanced
conditions.

The men of natural parts, of superior culture and ambitious spirit
usually, in all societies, manage to rise to the top as the natural
rulers of the people. You cannot keep them down; you cannot repress
them. They rise to the top as naturally as sparks fly upward to the
heavens. Demagogues and quacks manage only to impose upon the ignorant
and confiding, upon men, conscious of their own inability to rule, who
gladly transfer the responsibility to the first loud-mouthed fellow
who comes along claiming, as his own, superior capacity and virtue.
Intelligent men do not permit ignoramuses and adventurers to rule
them; they prefer to rule themselves; and they submit to be ruled by
such interlopers only so long as it takes them to thoroughly
understand the condition of affairs. It is not, therefore, to be
marvelled at that the white men of the South spread death and terror
in their pathway to the throne of power in subverting the governments
of the Reconstruction policy, based as those governments were, upon
_disorganized_ ignorance on the part of the blacks and organized
robbery on the part of the white adventurers, who have become infamous
under the expressive term "carpet-baggers;" although the genuine
Northern immigrants, the "Fools" who came in good faith to cast in
their lot with the Southern people supposing themselves to be welcome,
should not share in the obloquy of that epithet. But, should the white
men of the South continue indefinitely as the rulers of the South, to
the absolute exclusion of participation of the black citizens of those
states, then would my surprise be turned into profound amazement and
horror at what such tyranny would produce as a logical result. Yet I
know the temper of the people of the South too well to base any
deduction upon a proposition so full of horror and despair. And, then,
too, such a proposition would be at variance with all accepted
precedents of two peoples living in the same community, governed by
the same laws and subject to the same social and material conditions.
I submit that I have no fears about the future political status of the
whites and blacks of the South. The intelligent, the ambitious and the
wealthy men of both races will eventually rule over their less
fortunate fellow-citizens without invidious rega