mittee quailed before the storm of popular indignation, and
re-committed the ordinance to the suffrage committee. Yet the law
which was finally passed, though lopped of some of its worst
excrescences, is the same in principle, and will work out nearly the
same results as the first proposition. It requires:--

_1.--That every elector shall be able to read and write, or shall own
property at an assessed valuation of not less than $300._

_2.--Lacking these, he shall have been a voter in some state of the
Union prior to January 1, 1867, or the son or grandson of such, and
not less than twenty-one years old at the adoption of this
constitution._

_3.--Every foreigner naturalized prior to January 1, 1898, shall have
the right to vote without regard to other qualifications._

The purpose, which was openly and constantly avowed, was to let in
every illiterate white man and to shut out every illiterate colored
man, and the provision it is thought, is elastic enough for the
purpose.

The whole law curiously illustrates the triumph of politicians. A
distinguished state senator said to the writer: "The convention is in
the hands of politicians; the people are not in it." It adjourned May
12. Two members refused to sign the instrument, and a number of others
were conveniently absent. Of the convention itself, one of its own
members said: "I have never seen such a graveyard of political
reputations." The _Times-Democrat_, probably by far the most
influential democratic paper of the state, and which has fought the
battle for an honest suffrage law with great ability, in its issue of
May 13, makes this editorial comment: "No men ever received a greater
trust than the members of the convention; and few have betrayed it
worse; ... and no one doubts that the constitution would be
overwhelmingly beaten if submitted to the popular vote." It also calls
upon the people to overthrow it at the earliest opportunity.

The new constitution has certainly come into life under bad omens. It
stands condemned as unconstitutional by the two United States
senators, and by the ablest democratic lawyers in Congress. The State
press is almost unanimous in its opposition--some on constitutional
grounds, others on account of the clause which exempts foreigners from
its operation as to the educational and property requirements; and it
is evident that what public sentiment demanded was an honest law based
upon intelligence and property with a poll tax p