riends will
then have a clean-cut issue to take to the forum of public opinion, and
a distinct ground upon which to demand legislation for the enforcement
of the Federal Constitution. The case from Alabama was carried to the
Supreme Court expressly to determine the constitutionality of the
Alabama Constitution. The Court declared itself without jurisdiction,
and in the same breath went into the merits of the case far enough to
deny relief, without passing upon the real issue. Had it said, as it
might with absolute justice and perfect propriety, that the Alabama
Constitution is a bold and impudent violation of the Fifteenth
Amendment, the purpose of the lawsuit would have been accomplished and a
righteous cause vastly strengthened. But public opinion cannot remain
permanently indifferent to so vital a question. The agitation is already
on. It is at present largely academic, but is slowly and resistlessly,
forcing itself into politics, which is the medium through which
republics settle such questions. It cannot much longer be contemptuously
or indifferently elbowed aside. The South itself seems bent upon forcing
the question to an issue, as, by its arrogant assumptions, it brought on
the Civil War. From that section, too, there come now and then, side by
side with tales of Southern outrage, excusing voices, which at the same
time are accusing voices; which admit that the white South is dealing
with the Negro unjustly and unwisely; that the Golden Rule has been
forgotten; that the interests of white men alone have been taken into
account, and that their true interests as well are being sacrificed.
There is a silent white South, uneasy in conscience, darkened in
counsel, groping for the light, and willing to do the right. They are as
yet a feeble folk, their voices scarcely audible above the clamor of the
mob. May their convictions ripen into wisdom, and may their numbers and
their courage increase! If the class of Southern white men of whom Judge
Jones of Alabama, is so noble a representative, are supported and
encouraged by a righteous public opinion at the North, they may, in
time, become the dominant white South, and we may then look for wisdom
and justice in the place where, so far as the Negro is concerned, they
now seem well-nigh strangers. But even these gentlemen will do well to
bear in mind that so long as they discriminate in any way against the
Negro's equality of right, so long do they set class against class and