land to a farm laborer, after he has contracted with another landlord,
without first obtaining the consent of the first landlord.

The presence of large numbers of negroes in the towns and cities of the
South and North can be accounted for by such laws as the above,
administered by ignorant country magistrates, in nearly all cases the
pliant tools of the landlords.

The boldest and most open violation of the negro's rights under the
Federal Constitution, was the enactment of the grand-father clauses, and
understanding clauses in the new Constitutions of Louisiana, Alabama, the
Carolinas, and Virginia, which have had the effect to deprive the great
body of them of the right to vote in those States, for no other reason
than their race and color. Although thus depriving him of his vote, and
all voice in the State governments at the South, in all of them his
property is taxed to pay pensions to Confederate soldiers, who fought to
continue him in slavery. The fact is, the franchise had been practically
taken from the negroes in the South since 1876, by admitted fraudulent
methods and intimidation in elections, but it was not until late years
that this nullification of the amendments was enacted into State
Constitutions.

This brings me to the proposition that it is mainly in the enforcement, or
the administration of the laws, however fair and equal they may appear on
their face, that the constitutional rights of negroes to equal protection
and treatment are denied, not only in the South but in many Northern
States. There are noble exceptions, however, of high-toned honorable
gentlemen on the bench as trial judges, and Supreme Court justices, in the
South, who without regard to consequences have stood for fairness and
justice to the negro in their courts.

With the population of the South distinctly divided into two classes, not
the rich and poor, not the educated and ignorant, not the moral and
immoral, but simply whites and blacks, all negroes being generally
regarded as inferior and not entitled to the same rights as any white
person, it is bound to be a difficult matter to obtain fair and just
results, when there is any sort of conflict between the races. The negro
realizes this, and knows that he is at an immense disadvantage when he is
forced to litigate with a white man in civil matters, and much more so
when he is charged with a crime by a white person.

The juries in the South almost always reject the testimony o