Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/60

Rh would have given the whole country over to contention and possibly in the end, to civil war. The discontented and oppressed negroes, increasing in numbers and wealth, would have demanded their rights ultimately, even by the threat of force, or by the use of force they would have secured their rights. In the North there would have been a large body of the people, only less than the whole body, who would have sympathized with the negroes and who, in an exigency would have rendered them material aid. The Dorr War in Rhode Island and the struggles in Kansas, are instances of the danger of attempting to found society or to maintain social order upon an unjust or an unequal system for the distribution of political power. It is true that at this time (1901) the operation of the Fifteenth Amendment has been defeated and consequently the governments of States and the Government of the United States have become usurpations, in that they have been in the hands of a minority of men. Nevertheless the influence of the amendment is felt by all, and the time is not distant when it will be accepted by all. Thus our Government will be made to rest upon the wisest and safest foundation yet devised by man: The Equality of Men in the States, and the Equality of States in the Union.

Mr. Sumner opposed the amendment and he declined to vote upon the passage of the resolution. Wendell Phillips saved it in the Senate. General Grant, more than anyone else secured its ratification by the people. I append a copy of my letter to Mr. Phillips: , March 13, 1870.&emsp;

This letter will recall to your mind the circumstance that when the Fifteenth Amendment was suspended between the two houses you published an editorial in the Standard in favor of the House proposition. Can you send me that article? It may not be known to you that that article saved the