[5] The right of 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.--XVth Amendment,
Sec. 1.

[6] While I write these lines, the daily newspapers furnish the
following paragraph. It is but one of the _waifs_ that are to be found
in the newspapers day by day. There is always some _circumstance_
which justifies the murder and exculpates the murderer. The black
always deserves his fate. I give the paragraph:

"SPEAR, MITCHELL CO., N.C., March 19, 1884.--Col. J.M. English, a
farmer and prominent citizen living at Plumtree, Mitchell County,
N.C., shot and killed a mulatto named Jack Mathis at that place
Saturday, March 1. There had been difficulty between them for several
months.

"Mathis last summer worked in one of Col. English's mica mines.
Evidence pointed to him being implicated in the systematic stealing of
mica from the mine. Still it was not direct enough to convict him, but
he was discharged by English. Mathis was also a tenant of one of
English's houses and lots. In resentment he damaged the property by
destroying fences, tearing off weather boards from the house, and
injuring the fruit trees. For this Col. English prosecuted the negro,
and on Feb. 9, before a local Justice, ex-Sheriff Wiseman, he got a
judgment for $100. On the date stated, during a casual meeting, hot
words grew into an altercation, and Col. English shot the negro.
Mathis was a powerful man. English is a cripple, being lame in a leg
from a wound received in the Mexican war.