The political significance of this Northern movement is out of all proportion to its absolute weight. It is only in the North that the Negro vote has dynamic power. In several of the border states, this vote is at present unhampered, but there is no guarantee of future security. In Mississippi there are 197,936 Negro males of voting age, but this potential vote does not affect the choice of a single official of that state. The black vote of that commonwealth is as completely nullified as the last two amendments had never been appended to our national constitution. On the other hand the 5,193 adult Negro males in Mich. are accounted of considerable consequence in the political equation of that state. In the Northern and Western states where men feel free to align themselves according to conviction, the two parties are so nearly even that the Negro vote constitutes the balance of power. Owing to unusual political conditions, which cannot be counted on to continue, the last three presidential elections were practically one-sided. The Republican party triumphed by a margin that far exceeded the entire Negro Contingent. It is only in several of the border states that this vote could in any way have affected the fate of presidential electors. The Negro vote, however, has been quite effective in state elections, and in the choice of congressmen. As the parties gravitate to normal conditions, the Negro vote will again become the balance of power in the controlling states of the North. At the beginning of every campaign each party feels that it has a chance of success. At such times the black vote looms up large and significant. In national affairs the colored vote usually adheres to the party of Lincoln and Sumner. As the margin between the two parties is a shifting and uncertain quantity, the rapid increase of the Negro vote in the Northern States becomes a matter of great political importance.