w the overthrow of
Reconstruction government was accomplished is well-known. The
significance of its overthrow is that it marked the arrogant reassertion
of the malignant and desperate purpose of the southern oligarchy,
trained in the absolutism of slave mastery, to despoil the Negro of the
rights of citizenship, and to reduce him to a state of serfdom.

In the preparation for the execution of this infamous purpose, they
attempted and succeeded in accomplishing what does great credit to the
sheer audacity of southern political leadership. By sublime
dissimulation they hoodwinked the other sections of the country in
regard to the South's attitude to the Negro. Their first maneuver was
to give the Negro a bad reputation and denounce as mischievous meddlers
those who insisted that he be dealt with justly. The Southern oligarchy
put forward its youngest and best men. Its first point of attack was
Massachusetts; and thither went Grady and Gordon and Watterson who with
persuasive accent plead the cause of the "New South." With charming
recklessness of statement, they proclaimed the era of sectional
fraternity and with consummate cunning set forth in the next breath to
eastern capitalists the industrial possibilities of the South. Gradually
they reached the climax of their mission, to wit: Leave the Negro to us:
we are his friends, his natural guardians: we know him better than you
do, and can more wisely fix his status in our social scheme. Then the
old, old story was repeated with endless refrain, of the Negro's
ignorance, criminal tendencies (fully attested by timely news dispatches
from the South), of his inferiority, and of the menace he is to
Anglo-Saxon domination.

Thus while the sons of slave masters were poisoning the minds of the
north and west, the slave drivers were at home perfecting the conspiracy
against Negro citizenship.

The year 1890 witnessed the beginning of the execution of this
conspiracy which promises to continue until the Negro is divested of
every right which is worth the having. In 1890 a minority of the people
of the state of Mississippi arrogated to themselves the right to despoil
the majority of the citizens of that state of the rights of free men by
nullifying the Fifteenth Amendment.

II

Before considering the new constitutions of the States of Mississippi,
South Carolina and Louisiana, and the decisions of courts respecting
them, I have deemed it proper to review the history of Negro