elective franchise is to give representation. So long as the Constitution
retains its present form, any State Constitution, or statute, which seeks,
by juggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a
clear violation of the fundamental law of the land, and a corresponding
injustice to those thus deprived of this right.

For thirty-five years this has been the law. As long as it was measurably
respected, the colored people made rapid strides in education, wealth,
character and self-respect. This the census proves, all statements to the
contrary notwithstanding. A generation has grown to manhood and womanhood
under the great, inspiring freedom conferred by the Constitution and
protected by the right of suffrage--protected in large degree by the mere
naked right, even when its exercise was hindered or denied by unlawful
means. They have developed, in every Southern community, good citizens,
who, if sustained and encouraged by just laws and liberal institutions,
would greatly augment their number with the passing years, and soon wipe
out the reproach of ignorance, unthrift, low morals and social
inefficiency, thrown at them indiscriminately and therefore unjustly, and
made the excuse for the equally undiscriminating contempt of their persons
and their rights. They have reduced their illiteracy nearly 50 per cent.
Excluded from the institutions of higher learning in their own States,
their young men hold their own, and occasionally carry away honors, in
the universities of the North. They have accumulated three hundred million
dollars worth of real and personal property. Individuals among them have
acquired substantial wealth, and several have attained to something like
national distinction in art, letters and educational leadership. They are
numerously represented in the learned professions. Heavily handicapped,
they have made such rapid progress that the suspicion is justified that
their advancement, rather than any stagnation or retrogression, is the
true secret of the virulent Southern hostility to their rights, which has