constructive leadership of
their section on the race question was an egregious blunder. They set in
motion instead the forces and passions which have at length wrested the
ballot from the Negro. But they themselves have not escaped the
consequences of their egregious blunder, for a new class of whites have in
turn wrested from them their leadership in Southern affairs. The black
seeds of this blunder of the old master class to lead their section in
social justice and progress, the bitter years have ploughed deep into the
life of both races. From the black seeds of their blunder black crops of
race hatred and crime and misery have been reaped annually by the South
along with those other crops of cotton and rice and sugar and tobacco, and
sent like them to all parts of the Republic.

The process of Southern political solidification, partially suspended for
a few years, resumed promptly after 1876 all of its natural functions and
its one party governments. Since that time legislation hostile to the
Negro has increased enormously in that section. Its old reconstructed
State Constitutions have been one by one revised most favorably to the
whites and most unfavorably and unjustly for the blacks. For what with
grandfather and understanding clauses, educational and property
qualifications, partisan registration boards and election supervisors and
white primaries, the great majority of the colored people have been
excluded from the electorate, from any voice in the Government, while the
vote of the small minority who are included in the electorate has been
reduced to a nullity by their exclusion from the white primaries. The
states which have thus revised their constitutions have thereby effected
the practical disfranchisement of their entire colored population. While
they have done this they have managed at the same time to leave the ballot
in the hands of every white man.

Under such unequal conditions, the white man is immune from legislation
and administration unfriendly to his class, while the black man is exposed
to the aggressions of this favored class; either directly through mobs or
indirectly through hostile legislation and administration, which fix upon
him the brand of a caste whose members have no rights in Southern society
which white men are bound to respect. Such social injustice and political
inequality as exist between the races in the South are bad for the whites
as they are bad for the blacks--are very bad fo