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moment for action, and with the opening of the new era of industrial change to reorganize our franchise system. When it begins and is under way, it is too late.

"New times, new climes, new lands, new men, but still The same old tears, old wrongs, and oldest ill."

Shall we longer wait? Is not the fair settlement of this question in the manner I have indicated far wiser than any attempt to repeal or modify the Fifteenth Amendment, which has been so ably pressed by a respected member of this Conference? Will you allow me an additional moment to oppose, with all the earnestness of my life, this last proposition? At the risk of overtaxing your indulgence, I beg your further attention. This proposition is too powerfully and seductively urged by my friend, Dr. Murphy, to be passed in silence. We are striving to close the gulf between the two great sections. This demand would again open wide the bitterness of the olden days. It would say to the North, as Abraham of old said to Lot: "Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; but if thou wilt depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." It would be a step backward. It would be practically a revolution. It would loose from its moorings the crystallized sentiment of a third of a century. It would practically again raise the issues of the war. It could result only in evil by agitation, for it could never

be accomplished.

It would require the affirmative vote of the majority of the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States to repeal the amendment. It would require two-thirds of the vote of the Senate of the United States and the House of Representatives. The majority of one branch of the Legislature of only twelve States can defeat its modification or repeal. One-third vote in the House or Senate would defeat the repeal. No human right in all the history of government is so absolutely guaranteed as the rights under the Amendments to the Constitution. The practical effect of the repeal would be to wrest from the South a portion of our representation, which we could not consider in this day of industrial progress and need.

Sir, there is a higher reason than the loss of representation. The repeal or modification of the Fifteenth Amendment means the practical turning over to the South of the Negro Question as a local question. Are we able to bear it? Is not the question of the political status of ten millions of a different race, living amidst us, burden sufficient for the whole nation, which can only be settled, under the providence of the Almighty, by the earnest, hearty, and loving co-operation of the North and South? This action would, as nothing else, destroy that kindly co-operation.

With all our strength and pride, is not the burden too great for us alone to bear? We have trodden the winepress so long and our feet are worn with the weary round of the threshing-floor. I know that it is fashion

able to say: "Hands off! the South will settle its race troubles in its own way!" It seems to me that those who echo this cry know not what they say and do not understand the burden which they would impose upon our strength, and surely the love of our reunited country has not yet flooded their hearts with its tender beauty and power. It is true that the fructification of our hopes seems almost a dream touched with the radiance of the glory of that Blessed Land where alone the sunshine is brighter and the day more translucent than that which illumines and glorifies our own South. It is true that with a robe radiant and gorgeous with the waving grain, the fragrant hemp, the snowy cotton, and the ripened grape, we have clothed the nakedness of the dear old land. We have filled the desolate places with laughter and happiness and plenty, and with the sweet alchemy of the passing years as our gentle handmaiden, have poured the healing nepenthe upon the broken heart. Amid the fatness of our fields and beside our rivers, whose waters, like the minor strains of sad music, incessantly voice hallowed associations, and whose shores are redolent with the memories of sorrows endured and trials overcome, we are again erecting a majestic civilization. Yet, notwithstanding this glory of our labor, do we not need all of the tender sympathy and loving interest and wise. counsel which our brother of the North holds out to us with an open hand and a generous heart? This is the question in the economy of our governmental life

which cannot be local. Its settlement concerns all of the country, North and South alike. The South more immediately and acutely, it is true, but equally in its far-reaching consequences it touches all the people. It should not be left to the South to work it out alone and unaided. I am as insistent as any son of the South can be upon our supreme right to settle in our own way our social affairs, and I insist that in our social and racial treatment of the question our hands should be free to fend as meets our need. That aspect is local and personal. However, upon the great question of its final settlement in its national aspect, it will take all of the united wisdom and resources of the whole people. Why should not this supreme question have the undivided labor of our reunited and loving people, rendered almost omnipotent in the grandeur of its accomplishment, because the endeavor is crowned and glorified by the Brotherhood which, with each fading sunset, grows sweeter and dearer as the sullen crimson lights of the sad past

"Tinge the sober twilight of the Present

With color of romance"?

Well remembering what in our nakedness and emptiness we have accomplished in the settlement of the Race Question, yet I make obeisance to those of the North who by their assistance have rendered it possible for the South to have accomplished so much. With all my soul I plead that with us no narrow spirit

of sufficiency or suspicion of untoward interference on the part of the North should prevent the intertwining of our lives and our energies in the unravelling of the complexities of a situation which more vitally affects modern civilization than any question of the present day. For us to do so was for Theseus to refuse the sword of Ariadne, and to cast aside the skein of silk proffered by the loving hand of the daughter of Minos. A follower of Him, the latchet of whose shoe we are not worthy to loose, relates that on one of the carnagestricken fields of old Virginia an officer of a Massachusetts regiment lay wounded to death. His regiment had passed on leaving him alone with the fading light and amid the quickly-coming shadows. He was lying in the line of the march of the Southern troops, and as a Southern soldier hurried by he called and asked him to pray with him. "Oh, I am sorry I cannot," he said; "I have never learned to pray for myself." Yet with soft hands and tender sympathy he placed the dying officer under the grateful shade, pillowed his head, and cooling his fevered lips with water from his canteen, he left him with words of cheer and hurried away to the battle-field. Soon the ears almost in hearing of the majestic music of that better land and rendered doubly acute by its near approach, again heard coming footsteps, and as another Southern soldier passed by the pleading lips called out, "I beg you to come and pray with me." Seeing the dimming eyes and the broken form, the Southern soldier

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