directly or indirectly concerned the national and political unity of the
American people. Having secured this submission the Republican party
restored to the Southern States the reality as well as the name of State
rights; and allowed the same and no more than the same independence to
South Carolina as is allowed to New York. No doubt something was
sacrificed; this "something" was a matter which did not greatly concern
the citizens of the North. It was the attempt to secure to the Black
citizens of the South the political rights given them by the
constitution. The sacrifice may have been necessary; many of the wisest
Americans hold that it was so. But we may suspect that even amongst
those who, as a matter of policy, approve the course pursued by the
Federal Government in the South since 1876, qualms are occasionally felt
as to some of its results. The able writer who sets American Home Rule
before Englishmen as an example for imitation says with the candour
which marks his writings: "I do not propose to defend or explain the way
in which" the Native Whites "have since then" (1876) kept the Government
"in their hands by suppressing or controlling the Negro vote. This is
not necessary to my purpose."[24] It is however necessary for the
purpose of weighing the effect of American experience to bear this
"suppression" constantly in mind; it has deprived the Negroes of
political rights which possibly they had better never have received, and
has falsified the result of Presidential elections. When we are told
that the South votes solid for a Democratic President, we must remember
that in the Southern States the Negro vote is "controlled"; and that in
reckoning the number of votes to which a State is entitled in virtue of
its population, the Negro voters of the South are counted for as much as
the uncontrolled White voters of the North. Whether this state of things
will always be contentedly borne by the Northern States is a matter on
which a foreigner can form no opinion. It is a condition of affairs
which does not conduce to respect for law, and the satisfaction with