Fortune is often too kind and generous to the mentally, morally delinquent and too often covers the path of the undeserving with flowers, while real merit and genius is allowed to starve and die. The Disfranchisement of the Negro BY WILFRED H. SMITH FROM THE OUTLOOK As an American Negro I feel compelled to take issue with the Hon. John B. Knox of Alabama, in his article in The Outlook of January 21, on the “Reduction of Southern Representation,” and challenge his statement that the recent Constitution of Alabama does not disfranchise the Negro as such, but only prescribes an educational and property qualification test for both races; and his further statement that in case a Negro is discriminated against by the registrars, an appeal to the courts of Alabama will not be in vain. On the contrary, the fact is that the suffrage provisions of the new Constitution of Alabama are an open disavowal and nullification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and an exclusion of the Negro from the electorate on account of his race and previous condition; also the law providing for an appeal to the courts of the State of Alabama, where a Negro is refused registration, is only a snare, and affords him no relief whatever. In considering this question the following undeniable facts should be borne in mind: 1. The Twelfth Census of the United States shows the population of the State of Alabama to be 1,001,152 whites and 827,545 Colored; and in 20 counties the Negroes largely outnumber the whites. 2. That since 1875 or thereabouts, up to the adoption of the new Constitution, the Negro vote in the State of Alabama has been suppressed by intimidation and false returns; so that during the entire time the complete control of the state government has been in the hands of white men and the Democratic party. 3. That not a single Negro delegate held a seat in the convention which enacted this Constitution; it was composed exclusively of white men. 4. That the constitutional convention was called upon a party platform in which there was a pledge that no white man, however poor or ignorant, should be deprived of the franchise. Upon the authority of Judge Cooley’s work on Constitutional Limitations, and the case of Ah Kow vs. Nunan, 5th Sawyer, 560, it is proper to refer to statements in debate on the passage of a law, for the purpose of ascertaining the general object of the legislation proposed, and the mischief sought to be remedied. If, then, we wish to know the purpose of the law, we have but to read the words of Mr. Knox himself, in his opening address as president of the constitutional convention: