Certainly there was basis for the claim. At no time had the rate of increase of the blacks been so high as the Census disclosed in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana in 1880. Yet the first named set herself resolutely against any relaxation of the rule of rigid separation of the races, and in 1888 brought to a conclusion the discussion concerning the admission of clerical delegates to the Protestant Episcopal Convention, by a resolution reciting the “absolute necessity for the separation of the races in the diocese,”[222] effected upon a basis, putting all subsequent decisions within the control of the lay delegates.[223] In the years in which it had been maintained in the South Negro supremacy had done more to destroy the belief of the bulk of the Northern public, as to the capacity of the race to assume the full duties of citizenship, than any argument of whites could have achieved. The following extracts from a letter of George W. Curtis at this date is interesting. Referring to conditions in the fifties, he writes: “I was mobbed in Philadelphia and the halter was made ready for me and I was only protected by the entire police force merely because I spoke against slavery.”[224] With freedom of discussion assured, he now, in December, 1888, wrote: “I am very much obliged by your letter of Nov., I do not think the feeling of this part of the country is precisely understood in your part. It is in a word this, that admitting the force of all that is said about Negro supremacy, the colored vote ought not to be suppressed and the advantages based upon it retained. Of course I do not say it should be suppressed. I am assuming that there is great reason in the remark that under the same conditions the people in the Northern States would do likewise, and I ask whether, under that assumption, the people of those States ought to expect to retain what they are not entitled to? It is unreasonable to ask acquiescence in the suppression of legal votes, which makes the white vote in Mississippi count more than the white vote in Massachusetts or New York. An educational test would be of no avail in a community where color is the disqualification according to Mr. Grady and Mr. Watterson. I shall be very glad to hear from you and I should like to know the reply to the statement, that it is not fair to suppress the vote and retain the advantages based upon it.”[225] The reply of the individual to whom this letter was addressed may well be omitted, in the light of what follows.