constitutional convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of
the colored people we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments.... The brotherhood of man exists no longer, because
you shoot negroes in Illinois, when they come in competition with
your labor, and we shoot them in South Carolina, when they come
in competition with us in the matter of elections."

Such a miscarriage of Republican policy was long a bitter
grievance to the leaders of the party and incited them to action.
If they could have had their desire, they would have used
stringent means to remedy the situation. Measures to enforce the
political rights of the freedmen were frequently agitated, but
every force bill which was presented had to encounter a deep and
pervasive opposition not confined by party lines but manifested
even within the Republican party itself. Party platforms insisted
upon the issue, but public opinion steadily disregarded it.
Apparently a fine opportunity to redress this grievance was
afforded by the election of President Harrison in 1888 upon a
platform declaring that the national power of the Democratic
party was due to "the suppression of the ballot by a criminal
nullification of the Constitution and laws of the United States,"
and demanding "effective legislation to secure integrity and
purity of elections." But, although they were victorious at the
polls that year, the Republican leaders were unable to embody in
legislation the ideal proposed in their platform. Of the causes
of this failure, George F. Hoar gives an instructive account in
his "Autobiography." As chairman of the Senate committee on
privileges and elections he was in a position to know all the
details of the legislative attempts, the failure of which
compelled the Republican leaders to acquiesce in the decision of