the constitution will ever
form the true basis of our liberties." It further said; "Asserting the
equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the
government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out equal and
exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race, color, or
persuasion, religious or political."[22]

Giving some impetus to the movement for woman suffrage which the
Republicans had by various platforms theretofore encouraged, the
Prohibitionists carried in their platform in 1888 the declaration that
the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of race, color,
sex or nationality and that "where, from any cause, it has been held
from citizens who are of suitable age and mentally and morally
qualified for the exercise of an intelligent ballot, it should be
restored by the people through the legislature of the several States,
on such basis as they may deem wise.[23]

To protect the Negroes in their political rights, however, the Federal
Government as administered by the Republican party during these years
furnished little encouragement, through its much talked of enforcement
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Bills providing for
adequate military protection of the Negroes at the polls were enacted
but the Supreme Court of the United States declared that the Federal
Government did not possess the authority to restrain mobs from
interfering with elections. The Supreme Court conceded that the
Fifteenth Amendment forbade the denial of the right to vote by any
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,
but easily conceded that no violation of this amendment could occur
when a hostile mob excluded Negroes from the polls. Yet although the
mob thus quickly triumphed in undoing the democratic reforms of
Reconstruction, the South hoped thereafter to reach the same end by
imposing on the Negroes a legal disability; for the Fifteenth
Amendment did not assert the right of the Negro to vote. It merely
said that suffrage could not be denied on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude. As the Negro was generally poor and
in the midst of the economic depression of the South too often had to
wander from place to place to seek a livelihood, he could be easily
eliminated by the poll tax, the resident requirement, and educational
tests.

Thus it happened. Mississippi under its new constitution in 1890
eliminated the Negro and in the next