Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/130

 As the guard carried Nelse away a crowd of angry negroes followed grinning and cursing.

"We lay fur you yit, ole hoss!" was their parting word as he disappeared through the jail door.

That night at the supper table in the hotel at Ham-bright an informal census of the voters was taken. There were present at the table a distinguished ex-judge, two lawyers, a General, two clergymen, a merchant, a farmer, and two mechanics. The only man of all allowed to vote that day was the negro who waited on the table.

Thus began the era of a corrupt and degraded ballot in the South that was to bring forth sorrow for generations yet unborn. The intelligence, culture, wealth, social prestige, brains, conscience and the historic institutions of a great state had been thrust under the hoof of ignorance and vice.

The votes were sent to the military commandant at Charleston and the results announced. The negroes had elected 110 representatives and the whites 10. It was gravely announced from Washington that a "republican form of government" had at last been established in North Carolina.