Twenty-five out of every hundred--one out of every four--of the
_white voters_ of the former slave states cannot read the
ballots which they cast; forty-five per cent of the entire voting
strength of those sixteen states are unable to read or write."
"Well?" said the other calmly, seeing Le Moyne look at him as though
expecting him to show surprise.
"_Well!_" said Le Moyne. "I declare your Northern phlegm is
past my comprehension.--'Well,' indeed! it seems to me as bad as
bad can be. Only think of it--only six per cent of intelligence
united with this illiterate vote makes a majority!"
"Well?" was the response again, still inquiringly.
"And that majority," continued Le Moyne, "would choose seventy-two
per cent of the electoral votes necessary to name a President of
the United States!"
"Well," said the other, with grim humor, "they are not very likely
to do it at present, anyhow."
"That is true," replied Le Moyne. "But there is still the other
danger, and the greater evil. That same forty-five per cent are of
course easily made the subjects of fraud or violence, and we face
this dilemma: they may either use their power wrongfully, or be
wrongfully deprived of the exercise of their ballotorial rights.
Either alternative is alike dangerous. If we suppose the illiterate
voter to be either misled or intimidated, or prevented from exercising
his judgment and his equality of right with others in the control
of our government, then we have the voice of this forty-five per
cent silenced--whether by intimidation or by fraud matters not.
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