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nominated and elected a member of the Convention.

When the Convention met, it was found that there were two strong
factions, one in favor of giving legal effect to the nullification of
the Fifteenth Amendment, and the other opposed to it. The George faction
was slightly in the majority, resulting in one of their
number,--nullificationists, as they were called,--Judge S.S. Calhoun,
being elected President of the Convention. The plan advocated and
supported by the George faction, of which Senator George was the author,
provided that no one be allowed to register as a voter, or vote if
registered, unless he could read and write, or unless he could
understand any section of the Constitution when read to him and give a
reasonable interpretation thereof. This was known as the "understanding
clause." It was plain to every one that its purpose was to evade the
Fifteenth Amendment, and disfranchise the illiterate voters of one race
without disfranchising those of the other.

The opposition to this scheme was under the leadership of one of the
ablest and most brilliant members of the bar, Judge J.B. Christman, of
Lincoln County. As a substitute for the George plan or understanding
clause, he ably and eloquently advocated the adoption of a fair and
honest educational qualification as a condition precedent to
registration and voting, to be equally applicable to whites and blacks.

The speeches on both sides were able and interesting. It looked for a
while as if the substitute clause proposed by Judge Christman would be
adopted. In consequence of such an apprehension, Judge Calhoun, the
President of the Convention, took the floor in opposition to the
Christman plan, and in support of the one proposed by Senator George.
The substance of his speech was that the Convention had been called for
the purpose of insuring the ascendency of the white race,--the
Democratic party,--in the administration of the State Government through
some other methods than those which had been enforced since 1875.

"If you fail in the discharge of your duties in this matter," he
declared, "the blood of every negro that will be killed in an election
riot hereafter will be upon your shoulders."

In other words, the speaker frankly admitted, what everyone knew to be a
fact, that the ascendency of the Democratic party in the State had been
maintained since 1875 through methods which, in his opinion, should no
longer be sanctioned and tolerated. These met