CHAPTER IV THE POLITICAL PHASE OF THE PROBLEM In a confederacy founded on republican principles, and composed of republican members, the superintending government ought clearly to possess authority to defend the system against aristocratic or monarchical innovations. The more intimate the nature of such a union may be, the greater interest have the members in the political institutions of each other, and the greater right to insist that the forms of government under which the compact was entered into should be substantially maintained.-MADISON, The Federalist, Number 42. THE HE subject of this chapter is the flagrant violation of the democratic principle underlying our institutions necessitated by the presence of the negro in large numbers in the Southern States. Our philosophy of government The Demo- defines democracy as a society based upon the absolute equality of its members and of which the governmental organization is formed, controlled, and administered by the people themselves, exercising political power either by direct action. or by means of chosen representatives. In the phrase of Lincoln, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people.' Such a form of government is alone possible where the great body of the people stand substantially on a plane of racial equality and where all privilege derived from race, birth, wealth, or even based upon public service, has been abolished. The existence of any permanent caste, created by wealth, color, or hereditary qualification, the full development of the democratic principle in government. Whether it be an aristocracy of birth, a privileged religious class, a predominant racial element, an influential landowning minority, or any other form of special privilege, such an institution is incompatible with the existence of a truly democratic organization. This ideal of democracy as a great social and political brotherhood, as it is understood in this country, in the present century, is of comparatively modern origin. In its present form it was unknown to the ancient world. The famed democracy of Athens, confined within a small and compact territory and with all political power exercised by a few citizens enjoying equality among themselves, in the midst of a far more numerous class of slaves, and also controlling a large foreign element, presents but a slight resemblance to our modern political organization. The Italian city republics of the Middle Ages, the Batavian republic, the commonwealth of Cromwell and Milton, all fall signally short of meeting the requirements of the system which, originating in the dreams of Rousseau, was placed for the first time in practical operation through the fervent belief in the capacity of man to govern himself which animated the first of all great democrats, Thomas Jefferson. The fundamental conception of this democratic theory of government rests upon the substantial participation of the body of the people in the direction of their public affairs. Indeed, it may be said that it demands their practical unanimity in the intelligent administration of its concerns, their actual active participation in governmental business, combined with a sagacity to detect the shortcomings of their public servants, and sufficient ability and courage under all circumstances to displace, when necessary, those entrusted with official power and to substitute for them others, when the exercise of the administrative, legislative, or judicial functions does not conform to the desires of the people. In so far as the operation of government falls short of this ideal it fails to be in fact representative democracy. The whole system must therefore be based upon the approximate equality of all its component members, as to their general qualifications for the exercise of governmental duties. Above all, it rests upon the theory that the people, as such, know better than any man or set of men what governmental measures are conducive to their permanent interests, This modern democracy may be said to find expression only in Switzerland and the United States. The insignificant position of the former country in relation to the great world powers, the conservative character of its inhabitants, and the general unimportance of its political problems, attach to it but small consideration as a factor in the development of the democratic theory, and it is to our country alone that the world now looks, sometimes doubtfully, but usually in a hopeful spirit, for the solution of the question whether a government founded upon the principles of representative democracy can indeed permanently endure. The philosophers of antiquity never conceived of such. Even in the ideal republic of Plato, where the final aim was the cultivation of virtue in citizens, leading to the acquirement of complete happiness by every member, society was organized upon a plan of classification of citizens antagonistic to our ideas of a modern commonwealth. Sir Thomas More, in his fascinating description of the state of Utopia, wherein he dreamed of things much rather to be hoped for than ever expected, could not conceive his projected social organization as complete without the introduction of a class of bondsmen. Now, how is this theory of democratic government to be carried into practical effect? Simply through the ballotbox. Lord Brougham said of the English Constitution, that All we see about us, kings, lords and commons, the whole machinery of the state, all the apparatus of the system and in its various workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box. And in like manner, and with much greater emphasis, it may be said of our religious, political, and educational institutions, that our constitutions and statutes, our churches, schools, and lecture halls, our ballot-box laws and political campaigns, annually filling the land with turmoil and tumultuous eloquence, have each and all, for their ultimate object, the enabling of every citizen to attend at the polls and intelligently and without intimidation to deposit one ballot, with the assurance that that ballot shall be fairly counted, and with the further assurance that every other man of proper qualifications shall in like manner be entitled to deposit his ballot, and that for him also, one ballot and no more shall be counted. To some of us it may seem that at times the measures adopted to secure this result are poorly calculated for that purpose. We are of late years relying altogether too much upon the machinery of complicated election laws, and upon a ballot system ill-adapted to the genius of a free people; a system which has a tendency to encourage the weakness and cowardice of underlings, rather than the open and manly performance of the high public duty involved in the exercise of the franchise. However, this is apart from the subject. In hopeful general terms we may confidently say that while we are yet far away from the ideal electoral system of a great democracy, with one notable exception the nation is gradually approaching toward its attainment. The exception to which reference is made is the condition attending the exercise of the franchise in the Southern States of the Union. No graver suffrage problem ever confronted a nation, and never in its aspects of gravity was the prob Effect of the lem apparently more hopeless than at the present time. To those who intelligently comprehend what is involved in the operation of our republican form of govNegro on the ernment, and who are familiar with the evils Democratic which lurk in the illegal deprivation of a great Principle. body of citizens of their right to participate in their ordinary governmental affairs, the situation in the South is of a deplorable character. In order to understand the condition there prevailing it will be necessary to give some attention to the origin of the trouble, and at some length to review the history of the partial enfranchisement and subsequent total disfranchisement of the negro race throughout the South. We have noted in our hasty review of the history of the problem the circumstance that prior to the Civil War the negro was not in general considered a citizen of the different states, and consequently was not entitled to citizenship of the United States. By judicial decision (The Dred Scott Case, 19 Howard, 393) he was debarred from national citizenship. The privilege of voting was, therefore, generally denied to him. In five of the New England States, where his numbers rendered him a negligible factor, he was permitted freely to exercise the suffrage, and to a restricted degree Connecticut accorded to him this same privilege. In the state of New York, could he show himself to be the owner of real property of some considerable value free of all incumbrances, after a residence of three years he might vote. In the other Northern States, without exception, white men alone were considered worthy of the franchise. Even Kansas, the scene of the final struggle between freedom and slavery, the state consecrated by the efforts of the North to the cause of freedom, denied to the negro the right to vote. The close of the Civil War and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which almost im |