Nor has the evil passed away with the practical nullification of the amendment. One of the most mischievous of all shams is a sham law. The Fifteenth Amendment, which our manhood suffrage politicians are too cowardly to repeal, has still a place in the Constitution, a sham law, a dead carcass, breeding disease and pestilence. This is plain to the student of American politics, though millions of American voters are too ignorant to recognize it and too irresponsible to care. For over forty-three years this amendment has been by eleven southern states openly flouted and defied because its enforcement would mean negro domination and a relapse into barbarism. The nullification of any existing law, and above all of a constitutional provision, is demoralizing to the nation; but in this case not only the fact of its nullification has been demoralizing, but the manner in which it was done; by methods admittedly evil in themselves, by violence, electoral trickery, theft of and tampering with ballot boxes, falsification and the use of fraudulent, technical and tricky law and procedure. There were probably 850,000 adult negro citizens in the southern states in 1870, of whom all but about 50,000 were ultimately disfranchised by these means, and by methods still in effectual operation. It is difficult to say which has been more scandalous, the enactment of the amendment by its friends, or the method of its nullification by its enemies. Nor is this the whole story of this shameful business. The net result has been and is to deprive a dozen southern states, say one-quarter of the Union, of all proper share and interest in Federal politics. This comes about because while the Fifteenth Amendment stands the South feels that there is danger of its enforcement by the Republican party; a fear encouraged by the weak hypocrisy of the blatant northern Republican politicians who pretend to believe in manhood suffrage and by the warnings of the blatant southern Democratic politicians who also pretend to believe in its imminence. The southern whites, therefore, have for over forty years voted, and still vote, _en masse_, the Democratic ticket for Congress and the president irrespective of all questions of Federal statesmanship. It is a most deplorable state of things, tending to corruption in one party, to partisanship in the other, and to confusion all around. Hence the “Solid South.” Be the question one of war or peace, high or low tariff, colonial expansion, internal improvement, civil service betterment or any other important question, the vote of the “Solid South,” instead of expressing the opinion of the southern people merely voices a negative to the Fifteenth Amendment.