Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/465

 and, refusing to agree, submitted majority and minority reports. The committee stood five for the majority and two for the minority.

Gaston and a daring young politician from the heart of the Black Belt signed the minority report. The majority report as submitted, was merely a rehash of the old platform on which they had been defeated by McLeod twice, with slight additional impeachment of the incapacity and corruption of the State Administration. The delegates from the Black Belt and the counties where the Red Shirts had been holding their noonday parades received it with silence. General Worth's machine cheered it vigourously, and gave a rousing reception to their chosen champion who made the presentation speech.

When Gaston rose to offer and defend his minority report, a sudden hush fell on the sea of eager faces. A few men in the convention had heard him speak. All had heard he was an orator of power, and were anxious to see him. His leadership in the Revolution of Independence and his subsequent arrest and imprisonment had made him a famous man.

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention," he began with a deliberate clear voice which spoke of greater reserve power than the words he uttered conveyed—"I move to substitute for this document of meaningless platitudes the following resolution on which to make this campaign."

You could have heard a pin fall, as in ringing tones like the call of a bugle to battle he read,

"Whereas, it is impossible to build a state inside a state of two antagonistic races,

And whereas, the future North Carolinian must therefore be an Anglo-Saxon or a Mulatto,

Resolved, that the hour has now come in our history