o central
or auxiliary authority to which he can appeal for protection. Wherever
he turns he finds the strong arm of constituted authority powerless to
protect him. The farmer and the merchant rob him with absolute
immunity, and irresponsible ruffians murder him without fear of
punishment, undeterred by the law, or by public opinion--which
connives at, if it does not inspire, the deeds of lawless violence.
Legislatures of States have framed a code of laws which is more cruel
and unjust than any enforced by a former slave State.

The right of franchise[5] has been practically annulled in every one
of the former slave States, in not one of which, to-day, can a man
vote, think or act as he pleases. He must conform his views to the
views of the men who have usurped every function of government--who,
at the point of the dagger, and with shotgun, have made themselves
masters in defiance of every law or precedent in our history as a
government. They have usurped government with the weapons of the
coward and assassin, and they maintain themselves in power by the most
approved practices of the most odious of tyrants. These men have shed
as much innocent blood as the bloody triumvirate of Rome. To-day,
red-handed murderers and assassins sit in the high places of power,
and bask in the smiles of innocence and beauty.

The newspapers of the country, voicing the sentiments of the people,
literally hiss into silence any man who has the courage to protest
against the prevailing tendency to lawlessness[6] and bare-faced
usurpation; while parties have ceased to deal with the question for
other than purposes of political capital. Even this fruitful mine is
well-nigh exhausted. A few more years, and the usurper and the man of
violence will be left in undisputed possession of his blood-stained
inheritance. No man will attempt to deter him from sowing broadcast
the seeds of revolution and death. Brave men are powerless to combat
this organized brigandage, complaint of which, in derision, has been
termed "waving the bloody shirt."

Men organize themselves into society for mutual protection. Government
justly derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. But
what shall we say of that society which is incapable of extending the
protection which is inherent in it? What shall we say of that
government which has not power or inclination to insure the exercise
of those solemn rights and immunities which it guarantees? To declare
a