ly employed to suppress the Negro vote, but, taken
as a whole, the supremacy of the white man was secure. No Negro had
held a State office for twenty years. In Clarendon they had even
ceased to be summoned as jurors, and when a Negro met a white man, he
gave him the wall, even if it were necessary to take the gutter to do
so. But this was not enough; this supremacy must be made permanent.
Negroes must be taught that they need never look for any different
state of things. New definitions were given to old words, new pictures
set in old frames, new wine poured into old bottles.

"So long," said the candidate for governor, when he spoke at Clarendon
during the canvas, at a meeting presided over by the editor of the
_Anglo-Saxon_, "so long as one Negro votes in the State, so long are
we face to face with the nightmare of Negro domination. For example,
suppose a difference of opinion among white men so radical as to
divide their vote equally, the ballot of one Negro would determine the
issue. Can such a possibility be contemplated without a shudder? Our
duty to ourselves, to our children, and their unborn descendants, and
to our great and favoured race, impels us to protest, by word, by
vote, by arms if need be, against the enforced equality of an inferior
race. Equality anywhere, means ultimately, equality everywhere.
Equality at the polls means social equality; social equality means
intermarriage and corruption of blood, and degeneration and decay.
What gentleman here would want his daughter to marry a blubber-lipped,
cocoanut-headed, kidney-footed, etc., etc., nigger?"

There could be but one answer to the question, and it came in thunders
of applause. Colonel French heard the speech, smiled at the old
arguments, but felt a sudden gravity at the deep-seated feeling which
they evoked. He remembered hearing, when a boy, the same arguments.
They had served their purpose once before, with other issues, to
plunge the South into war and consequent disaster. Had the lesson been
in vain? He did not see the justice nor the expediency of the proposed
anti-Negro agitation. But he was not in politics, and confined his
protests to argument with his friends, who listened but were not
convinced.

Behind closed doors, more than one of the prominent citizens admitted
that the campaign was all wrong; that the issues were unjust and
reactionary, and that the best interests of the State lay in uplifting
every element of the people rather