The law, after all, in this matter, plays very little figure. The white majority has determined to control the government utterly and to give the Negro, whether educated or not, no political influence. That is the plain truth of the matter. Listen to Hoke Smith in his campaign pledge of last year: "I favour, and if elected will urge with all my power, the elimination of the Negro from politics." Let us also quote the plain-speaking Vardaman in his address of April, 1907, at Poplarville, Miss.: How is the white man going to control the government? The way we do it is to pass laws to fit the white man and make the other people (Negroes) come to them.... If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.... The XV Amendment ought to be wiped out. We all agree on that. Then why don't we do it? It may be argued that this violent expression does not represent the best sentiment of the South. It does not; and yet Vardaman, Tillman, Jeff Davis, Hoke Smith, and others of the type are _elected_, the _majority_ in their states support them. And I am talking here of politics, which deals with majorities. In a following chapter I shall hope to deal with the reconstructive and progressive minority in the South as it expresses itself especially in the more democratic border states like North Carolina. Thus the spirit of democracy has really escaped among the coloured people and it is running abroad like a prairie fire. Tillman, the prophet, sees it: "Every man," he says, "who can look before his nose can see that with Negroes constantly going to school, the increasing number of people who can read and write among the coloured race ... will in time encroach upon our white men." _Demand Repeal of XV Amendment_ In order, then, to prevent the Negro getting into politics, the Tillmans, Vardamans, and others declare that the South must strike at the foundation of his political liberty: the XV Amendment must be repealed. In short, the moment the Negro meets one test of citizenship, these political leaders advance a more difficult one: now proposing to take away entirely every hope of ultimate citizenship. In the recent campaign for the United States senatorship in Mississippi, Vardaman and John Sharp Williams were quite in accord on this point, though they disagreed on methods of accomplishing the purpose. When the political liberty of the Negro has thus been finally removed, the South, say these men, will again have two parties, and will be able to take the place it should occupy in the counsels of the nation.