Such in brief is the story of the results and reactions of the attempt made a generation ago with great power and with all the seriousness of fanaticism, to put into actual effect in our Southern States the silly doctrine of the political equality of all men. The lesson and the conclusion are alike plain and undeniable. No sensible white man is now heard to urge that the pauper southern negroes be once more invited to take part in our political life. And yet, if there be truth in the theory that every man is entitled to a vote, no matter how humble, then the disfranchisement of the southern negro is a foul injustice, for which the whole American people are responsible, since they all acquiesce in it. But there is no truth in it. The mass of negroes are properly excluded from voting in the South, because as a class they lack the training, experience and temperament necessary to a proper exercise of the suffrage. All this seemed perfectly plain from the beginning; and yet it was only after a long and severe political agitation, accompanied by violence and bloodshed, that the South got rid of its rotten manhood suffrage governments; and it will take time and much talk to bring the American people to the point where they will feel compelled to apply to the ignorant and shiftless whites the principle then so fully illustrated, tried out and verified, that the suffrage is a function of government and cannot safely or justly be conferred on any class which is morally or mentally incompetent to perform it. CHAPTER XVII THE EFFECT OF MANHOOD SUFFRAGE IS TO ENSURE INEFFICIENCY IN DOMESTIC LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION.