Those two were South Carolina and Louisiana.
The people of those two States had chosen Republican Governors
at the State election held on the same day with the election
of the President. But these Governors could not hold their
power twenty-four hours without the support of the National
administration. When that was withdrawn the negro and carpet-
bag majority was powerless as a flock of sheep before a pack
of wolves to resist their brave and unscrupulous Democratic
enemy, however inferior the latter in numbers.
In attempting to give a dispassionate account of the history
of this great question which has entered so deeply into the
political and social life of the American people almost from
the beginning, it is hard to measure the influence of race
prejudice, of sectional feeling, and of that other powerful
motive, eagerness for party supremacy.
Suffrage was conferred upon the negro by the Southern States
themselves. Under the Constitution every State can prescribe
its own qualifications for suffrage, with the single exception
that no State can deny or abridge the right of a citizen of
the United States to vote on account of race, color or previous
condition of servitude.
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