rd to race or previous
condition. And the great-grandson of Senator Wade Hampton may yet vote
for the great-grandson of Congressman Robert Smalls to be Governor of
the chivalric commonwealth of South Carolina. Senator Wade Hampton may
grit his teeth at this aspect of the case; but it is strictly in the
domain of probability. The grandson of John C. Calhoun, the great
orator and statesman of South Carolina, has not as yet voted for a
colored Governor, but he has for a colored sheriff and probate judge,
as the following testimony he gave before the Blair committee on
"Education and Labor," (Vol II, p. 173), in the city of New York,
September 13, 1883, will show:

"Q. (the Chairman) What do you think of his [the black
man's] intellectual and moral qualities and his capacity for
development? A. (Mr. Calhoun, John C.) ... The probate judge
of my county is a Negro and one of my tenants, and I am here
now in New York attending to important business for my
county as an appointee of that man. He has upon him the
responsibilities of all estates in the county; he is probate
judge.

"Q. Is he a capable man? A. A very capable man, and an
excellent, good man, and a very just one."

Again (_Ibid_ p. 137), Mr. Calhoun testified:

The sheriff of my county is from Ohio, _and a Negro_, and he
is a man whom _we all support in his office_, because he is
capable of administering his office.

When the grandson of John C. Calhoun can make such admissions,
creditable alike to his head and his heart, may not the great-grandson
of Wade Hampton rise up to chase the Bourbonism of his
great-grandfather into the tomb of disgruntlement? I have not the
least doubt of such probability. Again, I say, I am not seriously
concerned about the future political status of the black man of the
South. He has talent; he has ambition; he possesses a rare fund of
eloquence, of wit and of humor, and these will carry him into the
executive chambers of States, the halls of legislation and on to the
bench of the judiciary. You can't bar him out; you can't repress him:
he will make his way. God has planted in his very nature those
elements which constitute the stock-in-trade of the American
politician--ready eloquence, rich humor, quick perception--and you may
rest assured he will use all of them to the very best advantage.

I know of municipalities in the South to-day, where capable colored
men ar