I have spoken of the effect of disfranchisement upon the colored race; it is to the race as a whole, that the argument of the problem is generally directed.  But the unit of society in a republic is the individual, and not the race, the failure to recognize this fact being the fundamental error which has beclouded the whole discussion.  The effect of disfranchisement upon the individual is scarcely less disastrous.  I do not speak of the moral effect of injustice upon those who suffer from it; I refer rather to the practical consequences which may be appreciated by any mind.  No country is free in which the way upward is not open for every man to try, and for every properly qualified man to attain whatever of good the community life may offer.  Such a condition does not exist, at the South, even in theory, for any man of color.  In no career can such a man compete with white men upon equal terms.  He must not only meet the prejudice of the individual, not only the united prejudice of the white community; but lest some one should wish to treat him fairly, he is met at every turn with some legal prohibition which says, “Thou shalt not,” or “Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.”  But the Negro race is viable; it adapts itself readily to circumstances; and being thus adaptable, there is always the temptation to

  “Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
   Where thrift may follow fawning.”

He who can most skillfully balance himself upon the advancing or receding wave of white opinion concerning his race, is surest of such measure of prosperity as is permitted to men of dark skins.  There are Negro teachers in the South—­the privilege of teaching in their own schools is the one respectable branch of the public service still left open to them—­who, for a grudging appropriation from a Southern legislature, will decry their own race, approve their own degradation, and laud their oppressors.  Deprived of the right to vote, and, therefore, of any power to demand what is their due, they feel impelled to buy the tolerance of the whites at any sacrifice.  If to live is the first duty of man, as perhaps it is the first instinct, then those who thus stoop to conquer may be right.  But is it needful to stoop so low, and if so, where lies the ultimate responsibility for this abasement?

I shall say nothing about the moral effect of disfranchisement upon the white people, or upon the State itself.  What slavery made of the Southern whites is a matter of history.  The abolition of slavery gave the South an opportunity to emerge from barbarism.  Present conditions indicate that the spirit which dominated slavery still curses the fair section over which that institution spread its blight.

And now, is the situation remediless?  If not so, where lies the remedy?  First let us take up those remedies suggested by the men who approve of disfranchisement, though they may sometimes deplore the method, or regret the necessity.