nt with the "understanding" cause for use until 1904, hedging the
suffrage after that date by a poll-tax. Application for registration
must be in the applicant's handwriting, written in the presence of the
registrar.

White solidarity yielding with time, there were heard in the Carolinas,
Alabama, and Louisiana, loud allegations, not always unfounded, that
this side or that had availed itself of negro votes to make up a deficit
or turned the enginery of vote suppression against its opponents' white
supporters.

Most States which overthrew negro suffrage seemed glad to think of the
new regime as involving no perjury, fraud, violence, or
lese-constitution. Some of Alabama's spokesmen were of a different
temper, paying scant heed to the federal questions involved. "The
constitution of '75," they said, "recognized the Fifteenth Amendment,
which Alabama never adopted, and guaranteed the negro all the rights of
suffrage the white man enjoys. The new constitution omits that section.
Under its suffrage provisions the white man will rule for all time in
Alabama."

The North, once ablaze with zeal for the civil and political rights of
the southern negro, heard the march of this exultant southern crusade
with equanimity, with indifference, almost with sympathy. Perfunctory
efforts were made in Congress to secure investigation of negro
disfranchisement, but they evoked feeble response.

CHAPTER II.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1888

[Illustration: Portrait.]
Grover Cleveland.
Photograph copyrighted by C. M. Bell.

[1888]

It looking forward to the presidential campaign of 1888 the Democracy
had no difficulty in selecting its leader or its slogan. The custom,
almost like law, of renominating a presidential incumbent at the end of
his first term, pointed to Mr. Cleveland's candidacy, as did the
considerable success of his administration in quelling factions and in
silencing enemies. At the same time reform for a lower tariff, with
which cause he had boldly identified himself, was marked anew as a main
article of the Democratic creed. The nomination of Allen G. Thurman for
Vice-President brought to the ticket what its head seemed to
lack--popularity among the people of the West--and did much to hearten
all such Democrats as insisted upon voting a ticket free from all taint
of mugwumpery.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
W. Q. Gresham.

The attitude of the Democratic party being favorable to tariff
reduction, the Re