ts therein, or having representation in the
electoral college based upon an apportionment in which the Negro
numerically is so prominent a factor, and in the exercise of rights
pertaining thereto, he is a nonentity.

"The Baptist Watchman" takes this unassailable position of this misrule:
"Ex-Governor Northen, of Georgia, in his address before the
Congregational Club the other evening, declared that the status of the
black race in the South was that of permanent dependence upon the white
race. The central point of his contention is that capacity to rule
confers the right to rule. The white man can give the black man a better
government that he can give himself; therefore, the black man should be
glad to receive the blessing at the hands of the white man. For our
part, we believe that, whatever specious defense on the ground of
philanthropy, civilization and religion may be made for this position,
it is radically repugnant to the genius of American institutions. If the
men of the nation who are best qualified to rule have a right to rule,
they themselves being the judge of their qualifications, England or
Russia would be justified in attempting to impose their sovereignty on
the United States, if they thought they could give us a better
government than we are apt to give ourselves. Unless the doctrine is
vigorously maintained that governments 'derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed,' and not from the conceit of an aristocracy
as to its own capacity, then we of the North will not find it easy to
protest effectively against the disfranchisement of the Southern
Negroes."

But the issue will not be made in opposition to a great national party
that draws a large measure of its strength from the South till disaster
from material issues compel. With the Republican party (as of a
Christmas morning) "everything is lovely and the goose hangs high;" but
discomfiture, sometimes laggard, is ever attendant on dereliction of
duty. This usurpation, which should have been throttled when a babe, has
now become a giant seated in its castle, compelling deference and
acquiescence to an anomaly, reaching beyond the Negro in its menace to
representative government.

And now, while from inertia the Republican party has been privy to this
misrepresentation, prominent Northern leaders are trying to take
advantage of their own neglect in an attempt to reduce representation in
national conventions from Southern States, irregul