In the meantime the Northern colored men have the right of free speech, and they should never cease to demand their rights, to clamor for them, to guard them jealously, and insistently to invoke law and public sentiment to maintain them.  He who would be free must learn to protect his freedom.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.  He who would be respected must respect himself.  The best friend of the Negro is he who would rather see, within the borders of this republic one million free citizens of that race, equal before the law, than ten million cringing serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance.  A race that is willing to survive upon any other terms is scarcely worthy of consideration.

The direct remedy for the disfranchisement of the Negro lies through political action.  One scarcely sees the philosophy of distinguishing between a civil and a political right.  But the Supreme Court has recognized this distinction and has designated Congress as the power to right a political wrong.  The Fifteenth Amendment gives Congress power to enforce its provisions.  The power would seem to be inherent in government itself; but anticipating that the enforcement of the Amendment might involve difficulty, they made the supererogatory declaration.  Moreover, they went further, and passed laws by which they provided for such enforcement.  These the Supreme Court has so far declared insufficient.  It is for Congress to make more laws.  It is for colored men and for white men who are not content to see the blood-bought results of the Civil War nullified, to urge and direct public opinion to the point where it will demand stringent legislation to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.  This demand will rest in law, in morals and in true statesmanship; no difficulties attending it could be worse than the present ignoble attitude of the Nation toward its own laws and its own ideals—­without courage to enforce them, without conscience to change them, the United States presents the spectacle of a Nation drifting aimlessly, so far as this vital, National problem is concerned, upon the sea of irresolution, toward the maelstrom of anarchy.

The right of Congress, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to reduce Southern representation can hardly be disputed.  But Congress has a simpler and more direct method to accomplish the same end.  It is the sole judge of the qualifications of its own members, and the sole judge of whether any member presenting his credentials has met those qualifications.  It can refuse to seat any member who comes from a district where voters have been disfranchised; it can judge for itself whether this has been done, and there is no appeal from its decision.