South might, under the Fourteenth Amendment, grant to the negroes the
right to vote but upon conditions wholly impracticable and thus have
secured their full representation in Congress at the same time that the
voting power was retained in the hands of the white race. Or they
might have denied to the negro race the right to vote and submitted to
a loss of representation. Such a policy would have given the whole
country over to contention and possibly in the end, to civil war. The
discontented and oppressed negroes, increasing in numbers and wealth,
would have demanded their rights ultimately, even by the threat of
force, or by the use of force they would have secured their rights. In
the North there would have been a large body of the people, only less
than the whole body, who would have sympathized with the negroes and
who, in an exigency would have rendered them material aid. The Dorr
War in Rhode Island and the struggles in Kansas, are instances of the
danger of attempting to found society or to maintain social order upon
an unjust or an unequal system for the distribution of political power.
It is true that at this time (1901) the operation of the Fifteenth
Amendment has been defeated and consequently the governments of States
and the Government of the United States have become usurpations, in
that they have been in the hands of a minority of men. Nevertheless
the influence of the amendment is felt by all, and the time is not
distant when it will be accepted by all. Thus our Government will be
made to rest upon the wisest and safest foundation yet devised by
man: The Equality of Men in the States, and the Equality of States in
the Union.

Mr. Sumner opposed the amendment and he declined to vote upon the
passage of the resolution. Wendell Phillips saved it in the Senate.
General Grant, more than anyone else secured its ratification by the
people. I append a copy of my letter to Mr. Phillips:

WASHINGTON, _March_ 13, 1870.
MY DEAR SIR:--

This letter will recall to your mind the circumstance that when the
Fifteenth Amendment was suspended between the two houses you published
an editorial in the _Standard_ in favor of the House proposition. Can
you send me that article? It may not be known to you that that article
saved the amendment. A little of the secret history was thus. Various
propositions were offered in the House--among them one of my own--and
all were referred to the Judiciary Committee.

I