their mutual
relations of protection and loyalty, and gracious and helpful they often
were. Now comes democracy,--vigorous, jostling, self-assertive,--its
true social ideal of brotherly comradeship being yet far from
realization. The negro is in a doubly hard position; under democratic
competition the weaker is thrust to the wall, yet he has not even the
equality which democracy asserts, but is held in the lower place by
caste. And so there is a new or a newly apparent aggression upon the
weaker race.

Its most obvious form is the legal limitation of suffrage. The irregular
and indirect suppression of the negro vote which had prevailed since the
close of the Reconstruction period, was not thorough and sure enough to
satisfy the white politicians. And the lawless habit which it fostered,
and whose effects could by no means be confined to one race, alarmed the
better classes. So from two directions there was a pressure toward some
restriction of the negro vote which should be both legal and effective.
The movement became active about the year 1895, and accomplished its end
in the States of Virginia, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi, and
Louisiana, by constitutional amendments. The qualifications thus
prescribed are so various and so variously combined that a full
statement here is forbidden by limits of space, but their general
characteristics are these: The requirement (in Virginia, South Carolina,
Alabama, Louisiana) of $300 worth of property; the payment of a poll tax
(in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana); the
ability to read and write (in North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana); the
ability, if not to read, to understand and explain any section of the
Constitution (in Virginia, Mississippi); regular employment in some
lawful occupation, good character, and an understanding of the citizen's
duties and obligations (Alabama).[2]

These restrictions apply in theory alike to both races. But exemption
from them is allowed, and the suffrage is given, to certain classes: To
all who served in the Civil War (Virginia, Alabama); to all who were
entitled to vote on January 1, 1867, also to the sons (or descendants)
of these two classes (Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana).

In these States, if these requirements are impartially enforced, the
effect is to impose on the negroes a moderate property or intelligence
qualification, or the two combined; and to give practically universal
suffrage to