known world, and her mariners plucked the fruit from the mystic Garden of the Hesperides, and the oar-beat of her triremes shook the mist of the Hyperborean Seas, and Gaul and Scythian and Christian appealed to her royal power, Rome was stricken.

But, sir, the student of the philosophy of government points to the important distinction that Rome. and Greece were guarded by the genius of the philosophers, and Judea by the patriarchs, the prophets, and the lawgivers, but that neither Greece nor Rome nor Judea was illumined by the Master, upon whose teachings are founded the principles of the modern state. In reply, sir, Holland, a modern state, is an illustration of the immutable rule that, whether under the teachings of the brows encircled by the chaplet of ivy and laurel or by the Crown of Thorns, the basic principle of civil life controlling the state cannot be impaired without ultimate ruin. Under the inspiration of religion, uplifted by the genius of freedom, grasping the great principle of representative union of Hansetown and Provence, defying Spain, establishing her colonies in all the earth, bidding fair to become a great, abiding, historic people and divide with England the control of the commercial and civilizing influences of the world, Holland, intoxicated with power, forgot the basic principle which made her great, and sank to the rank of a lesser national power having no future historic importance.

Then, sir, reasoning from the past, with all the

intensity of my life, I plead for the maintenance, in its original integrity, of the underlying principle of our Republic. It is supremely vital to liberty. Dethrone the principle from its high estate, and the temple of Liberty is already tottering. Political apostasy is terrible in its reach and grasp of power and in the quick emulation of its example. The infraction of the right of franchise, the impairment of the constitutional right of the citizen to exercise the franchise in South Carolina or in Alabama, provoke the desire and willingness to commit the same wrong in the populous city of New York or in Pennsylvania. The passing of enactments at Montgomery or Charleston, interfering with and restricting the franchise against the spirit of the Constitution and its amendments, provokes the terror of the Force Bill in the National House and Senate. The impairment of the constitutional right in the States. causes equal emulation for the destruction of our constitutional guarantees by laying the hand of political apostasy upon the Constitution of the United States.

"Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the strength of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."

Men desiring to grasp unconstitutional power heed little the cry of a people that any infraction of that

great instrument by them was caused by the overweening necessity of preserving their civilization from destruction. At this transition period of the world's history, the conservative forces of the country should be on their guard to save the Republic from any impairment of its fundamental principles. The times are surely propitious for such injury to our governing principle, and the example of its infraction too recent to brook denial. The growth of the sentiment that the Constitution is what the majority of the people wish it to be, the growing power of wealth and class in the elections, the increasing control of the central government and its gradual infringement upon the rights of the States, the overweening power of the Federal Courts upon every pretext seeking to control State tribunals and exercise jurisdiction never contemplated by the Constitution, the lessening respect for the elective franchise, and the want of regard for the dignity of the States, sadly illustrated to-day by the warring governments of a free commonwealth, all show the vital demand for the jealous care of the Constitution in all of its original vigor.

Now, sir, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, "That the right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," is as much a part and parcel of the organic law governing this country as any section of the Constitution. Whether wisely or

not this amendment was ratified, I will not discuss, but under its provisions the Negro has with you and me an equal right to exercise the franchise. If we are an honest and constitution-loving people, we will give him his constitutional right. His privilege of franchise is as sacred as ours, and should be as sacredly guarded. This is the only principle which should animate the life of a free republic and upon which its continued existence can be predicated. I challenge any transgression whatsoever without ultimate and grievous hurt to the Constitution, and as grave injury to the white man as to the black. It is, I repeat and urge, the most sacred and solemn principle of the Constitution. With whatever earnestness I may have, I "declare that this ark of our political covenant, this Constitutional casket of our Confederated Nation, encasing as it does more of human liberty and human security and human life than any government ever founded by man, I would not break for the whole African race."

If we have, under the trying exigencies of the days of Reconstruction and new citizenship, wandered away from the spirit of the Constitution, let us ascend the mountains where we can see the tables of the law. Here, in this sacred city, consecrated with the life and blood and treasure of our people to the Constitution of our Fathers, I call upon our people to gather again within its majestic portals and hear the law and give full heed to its commands.

There can be but one response upon this question

from those who have communed in the sacred temple of the Constitution with the mighty beings who builded the sacred edifice. I answer for them that this question cannot be settled until it is settled right. I base my statement upon the eternal foundation of historic precedent and universal experience. I appeal to the facts of our own history which culminated in this city in the great drama which fiercely rocked the walls of civilization. I appeal for my argument to one higher than Cæsar. The deepening and broadening sense of eternal justice in the human heart decreed that slavery was wrong. The institution was surrounded by powers which never before girdled a civil institution. It was held in the letter of the law. It was hedged about by a patriotism unquestioned. It was jealously protected by the party which for sixty years had fought the battles of the Republic and which had added to it an imperial domain and which was deeply intrenched in the affections of the people. It was supported by the most supremely equipped statesmen who ever dazzled the world by the power of human intellect and statecraft. It was settled as the law of the land, by the binding decisions of the highest courts from whose decrees there was no appeal except to the supreme forum of the human heart. At the sacred birth of States, around whose bedsides sat the armed and panoplied and watchful hosts of the institution, it was settled. By solemn compromise of North and South, sealed by the House and Senate, by friend and foe, it was settled. By every