What evils of universal suffrage are equal to these? Can an appeal be made in the name of minority rights by those who would themselves efface minorities?³ When slaves were escaping, they demanded that the constitutional guarantees be fulfilled to the letter, clamored like Shylock for the pound of flesh which the law allowed. Now, too, they demand of the amendments as before of the clauses of the instrument reserving power to the states, that they be construed by the letter:—but with what a change of object,—no longer that the rights of minorities may be respected but that they may be utterly suppressed. ³ In two states, viz; Mississippi and South Carolina, the colored people are in the majority. In the other four disfranchising states, as well as all other Southern states, they are in the minority. In the group of states disfranchising the colored voters, viz; N. C., S. C., Va., Ala., Miss., and La., the white population is 5,396,649 = 55 per cent. colored " " 4,453,253 = 45 per cent. total " " 9,849,902 = 100 per cent. —BY THE 12TH CENSUS (1900.) And if it be asserted that the superior must be allowed to rule, is superiority to be proved by a fiat of brute force? Is mere armed lawlessness the index of superior worth? When the nations agreed to fix limits to the cruelties of war, did they thereby place a penalty upon brains? Finally, is it claimed that a free ballot signifies unlimited corruption? Read the answer in England’s purification of her politics: I quote from Sir Thomas Erskine May:—