“If the wimmen of the South are as lofty principled as you say they are, and they wuz convinced that they could rescue their beloved land from danger by sacrificin’ their own feelin’s if necessary, to keep the balance of power in the educated classes, why, they would walk up and vote. I believe it jest as much as I believe I am standin’ here. “The same bravery that met the terrible reverses of the War with a smile hidin’ a breakin’ heart, that endured privation, and almost starvation, for their love to the cause, that same spirit hain’t a goin’ to falter now. Let them know that they can do great good to the imperilled South. Let them know that the country wants an intelligent, educated vote. Let the test of intelligence and a certain amount of education and morality be required. And then let every one of ’em vote, male or female, bond or free, black or white. “I don’t spoze you could bring up, if you should hunt for weeks, any good reason aginst this plan. I don’t spoze you would find any skairful and dangerous objection to it. I don’t spoze, really and honestly, that it _could_ be apt to do any harm. And then, on the other hand, you could bring up lots of reasons as to why it might do good; lots of ’em hefty reasons too—and good sound moral ones, every one of ’em. “The supremacy would for years and years, or as long as safety demanded, remain in the hands of the white race.” (I didn’t, in my mind, come out aginst Victor’s plans, but I knew that this would be a good thing for them that wuz left behind in the exodus and them that went too, a helpful, encouragin’ thing.) “And jest as soon as the negro and the poor whites get fit for it, as soon as they had fitted themselves morally and intellectually for the right of suffrage, why it is only justice that they should have it. “It would ensure safety to the South to-day, and it would open a bright and fair to-morrow, whether in this land or any other, where the colored men and wimmen can stand free and equal with the white race, where the low, ignorant ones of the white people can come up on another plane and a higher one, where they can read this text a shinin’ with the gold letters of Justice and Common Sense, where they glitter now with the sham gildin’ of absurdity— “‘All men are free and equal.’ “For a low, vicious, ignorant person, be he black or be he white, is _not_ equal to a high-minded, intelligent one. And the law that sets them two up side by side is an unjust and foolish law. “But the light of the fair to-morrow is a shinin’ down; its light beckons, it inspires, it helps forward. “It is a _sure_ thing. Jest as soon as a man or woman is fit to vote they can vote. If they prepare themselves in ten years, there the golden prize is a waitin’ for ’em. If they fit themselves in one year to reach it, so much the better. “It is a premium set upon effort for men and wimmen, black and white, upon noble endeavor, upon all that lifts a man above the animals that perish.