in politics. ¹ More than all deterrents was the fear of
the revival of the Ku-Klux and the shot-gun policy
of the past. As long as the Republicans could win
the presidency there was a general disposition to
let the South work out the problem of negro suf-
frage in its own way. And for many years the
Republicans of other sections practically withdrew
from all participation in southern campaigns: Sena-
tor Sherman's speech at Nashville, in 1887, was said
to be the first address on national politics ever
spoken by a Republican of national reputation to
a southern audience. ² The white population of the
South honestly believed that political activity and
privilege was bad for the colored race. The negroes,
it was thought, were so ignorant that, as in the
earlier days of reconstruction, if given the oppor-
tunity, shrewd and unscrupulous black leaders or
white adventurers would fill the offices. The in-
feriority of the negro was still held to be a demon-
strated fact; it was useless to reason in the abstract
when a concrete problem was at hand.

The success of the Democrats in 1884 awoke a
renewal of Republican demands that the negro be
allowed to vote. By the suppression of this vote
it was estimated that the Democrats held twenty-
four seats in Congress and cast thirty-eight votes
in the electoral college to which they were not en-
titled. Before the Civil War a slave was reckoned

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