The political party then in power stands before the bar of an intelligent public sentiment of today a confessed and convicted author of the greatest and most criminal mistake of all time. The experiment of negro suffrage was a most stupendous blunder. Under that vicious system society was depressed to a greater degree than could be borne. For ten long years was Mississippi ruled by the adventurer, who filled the mind of the negroes with a spirit of misrule, prejudice and hatred against their former masters. He found a people impoverished by the loss of millions in slave property, and made penniless by a long and protracted war. The State was turned over as so much prey to the hungriest and cruelest flock of human vultures that ever cursed mankind and the pathway towards better things was stained with the life blood of her best and noblest. Under such a reign property was insecure. There was open and notorious plunder without the hope of redress. Ignorance, crime and hatred had enthralled the white people of the state. No greater burden has ever been put upon a suffering people, and while it lasted in Mississippi the state was overwhelmed by a horde of ignorant, immoral and degraded vagabonds. The blighting curse of negro rule was patiently borne by the people of Mississippi until 1875, when a halt was called, and every white man in the State took a solemn oath before high heaven that he would free himself and his posterity from such a disgrace, or die in the attempt. That idea was the battle-cry under which the campaign of 1875 was fought. That campaign was the supreme effort of a brave people to save themselves and their posterity from the blighting ruin of black supremacy. It was the most remarkable demonstration of courage ever shown to an admiring world; it was the courage that dared death and defied the world in its struggle against infamy and dishonor. The struggle was begun by a well attended mass-meeting of leading men from every county in the State. Lawyers left their books, doctors their patients, preachers their sermons, merchants their stores, and farmers their fields, and formed themselves into a mighty force for the overthrow of misrule. These brave and determined men met together at the State capitol in Jackson, Jan. 4th, 1875, and organized what is known to history as the Taxpayers' Convention of Mississippi. The convention was called to order by Hon. W. L. Nugent, one of the great lawyers of the Jackson bar. Gen. W. S. Featherston, of Holly Springs, was called to preside over the deliberations of the meeting, and his pure patriotism and great influence gave force to a gathering that was prepared to call the people of the State to arms if need be, in defense of their rights and liberties. To Gen. Featherston and Judge Wiley P. Harris all honor is due for the brave stand they took at that time. They were both remarkable men of fearless courage and sound judgement.