ck man's protest against oppression and wrong. It was too
much to ask thoughtful people to believe this transparent story, and the
southern white people at last made up their minds that some other excuse
must be had.

Then came the second excuse, which had its birth during the turbulent
times of reconstruction. By an amendment to the Constitution the Negro was
given the right of franchise, and, theoretically at least, his ballot
became his invaluable emblem of citizenship. In a government "of the
people, for the people, and by the people," the Negro's vote became an
important factor in all matters of state and national politics. But this
did not last long. The southern white man would not consider that the
Negro had any right which a white man was bound to respect, and the idea
of a republican form of government in the southern states grew into
general contempt. It was maintained that "This is a white man's
government," and regardless of numbers the white man should rule. "No
Negro domination" became the new legend on the sanguinary banner of the
sunny South, and under it rode the Ku Klux Klan, the Regulators, and the
lawless mobs, which for any cause chose to murder one man or a dozen as
suited their purpose best. It was a long, gory campaign; the blood chills
and the heart almost loses faith in Christianity when one thinks of Yazoo,
Hamburg, Edgefield, Copiah, and the countless massacres of defenseless
Negroes, whose only crime was the attempt to exercise their right to vote.

But it was a bootless strife for colored people. The government which had
made the Negro a citizen found itself unable to protect him. It gave him
the right to vote, but denied him the protection which should have
maintained that right. Scourged from his home; hunted through the swamps;
hung by midnight raiders, and openly murdered in the light of day, the
Negro clung to his right of franchise with a heroism which would have
wrung admiration from the hearts of savages. He believed that in that
small white ballot there was a subtle something which stood for manhood as
well as citizenship, and thousands of brave black men went to their
graves, exemplifying the one by dying for the other.

The white man's victory soon became complete by fraud, violence,
intimidation and murder. The franchise vouchsafed to the Negro grew to be
a "barren ideality," and regardless of numbers, the colored people found
themselves voiceless in the councils of those whos