bore before him his title to supremacy, ready made out and signed by the leaders of a conquering people. At his side marched the advance guard of a victorious army, whose orders were not sealed, but whose powers were discretionary in supporting him in the exercise of his newly acquired rights. He is to become legislator and executive; the patronage of a dozen States is to rest at his disposal. No longer to obey the commands and dread the displeasure of a superior, he is to be granted an opportunity of balancing his life accounts and of imposing his own terms upon the proud lords whom the fortunes of war had placed at his feet.

And he used this power in a most unexpected manner. Himself too ignorant to hold the reins of government, he played into the hands of the first who espoused his cause. All who bore the grand name of Republican were to him the apostles of mystical freedom and utopian delight. Born to obey, he knew not how to rule, but fancied a change of masters was the dawn of freedom. Adventurers whom an old society had cast out, came to aid the organization of a new. Profligate soldiers, whose term of service had expired, came to bear away, in the name of law, what they had failed to secure in the name of plunder. Political vultures of every name flew to the feast. Not content with the substance of the white population, they bled the poor negroes who gave them power, throwing them an occasional sop to feed their faith.

The condition of South Carolina, especially, from 1870 to '76, was truly appalling. The misrule of the five years preceding had exhausted her resources; her debt was enlarging, her tax rates increasing, her credit gone; her courts were a travesty on the fair name of justice; her law-makers were hirelings; her executives thieves. Franklin J. Moses, Governor from '70 to '74, is now incarcerated in Ludlow Street Jail, convicted of "sharping" in the streets of New York. R. K. Scott, his immediate predeces

sor, is on trial for his life in a western State for the murder of a friend of his son. Senator Patterson, of the former administration, was caught by United States officials during a raid on a gambling den in Washington. After the election of '76, laborers were employed for days in the State House at Columbia, cleansing its chambers, and rendering them fit to be occupied by a body of gentlemen. During these years there were less than twenty public schools in the State, and these were sustained by private funds, as charitable institutions.

Is it strange that the press, the tribune of plebeian liberties, cried "Veto"? Is it strange that intellectual and commercial energies were prostrated? Is it strange that the planter forgot his crops and the student his books, that the marts became lonely and the streets forsaken, when labor was unproductive and capital unpossessed, when the widow emptied her stocking to pay the tax on the miserable roof that covered her head as a premium on public extravagance, debauchery, and crime, and as a bid to desperate adventurers. Is it strange that men of wide learning, unsullied honor, and the truest patriotism refused to aid the enforcement of laws passed by a body of drunken freedmen, and framed by demagogues that would shame the pretensions of Kleon, the Greek - laws that were subversive of the plainest maxims of political wisdom and fatal to the slight vestige of promise that the war had left? Is it strange that the veterans of Gettysburg and of Chancellorsville forgot that they had been subdued, forgot that the opponent of Lee was President of the United States, remembered only the past of prosperity and plenty and peace, and adopted measures both fair and foul to restore Caucasian rule?

I do not defend these measures. The Ku-Klux was the most infamous institution that ever flourished in a civilized community, with one exception and that exception is negro rule as it then existed. The tissue ballot is the

weapon of deceit and fraud. It destroys the law of representation, upon which democratic government is based. It is an infringement of private rights, a direct violation of the provisions of the constitution. But in the South deceit and fraud were not new; an enemy was to be met of ten years' experience with the same weapons. And as for democratic government and the constitution, both had long since become delusions. By subterfuge and deceit a general breaks the enemy's lines around Vicksburg, and a cry arises from all the land: "Splendid achievement!" "Masterpiece of generalship!" By subterfuge and deceit. an election is carried, whereby intelligence is dignified, education promoted, commerce invigorated, debt diminished, credit restored, taxation reduced, tranquillity secured, and the blessings of peace and good government provided, and the cry ascends: "Bourbonism in the South!” “Violation of the constitution!" In 1883 a band of paupers lands at Castle Garden; they are forthwith recognized as public burdens and sent back to their native lands. The country generally approves. In 1876 a band of defaulters and convicts, who are subsequently found in northern jails, are banished from the Southern States, and the cry is heard: "Social ostracism in the South!" No doubt Spartacus and his fellow gladiators, like the negroes of the South, had abundant cause for complaint, but the Roman senate was right in repressing their outbreak, and in adopting milder measures for redressing their grievances.

The history of the last eight years exhibits the results of the Southern policy. Streams that before listened contentedly to the sound of their own dashings, now flow in tune to the hum of the spindle and the clack of the gin. Cainhoy and Hamburg have dropped the rifle and the sword and have taken the harrow and the plough. Large appropriations are made for public education-in Columbia alone twelve hundred children of both races are enrolled in the public schools. High institutions of learning, that the

war scythe cut to the ground, are again rising here and there. The capitalist ventures with confidence, and the laborer works with zeal, while the negro sings as he tills his piece of ground or works his evening sum. Do you judge public policy by its results? Where in history is there a greater change and fairer promise? Does morality consist in motives? Let the voice of Southern statesmen, the unity of the Southern press, and the contentment of all classes attest the complete satisfaction of the motives that actuated the revolution of '76. Is there an intrinsic standard of judgment? Then bring back the pauper from Europe; condemn, with the Southern policy, the general at Vicksburg; condemn Washington with his wooden cannon; condemn Rahab, who concealed the spies, and the judg ment that rewarded her; yes, condemn the very hare that instinctively turns upon its track to deceive its bitterest enemy!

But I am not discussing the nature of right and wrong; I am discussing the fifteenth amendment, and its violation; for it has been systematically violated, and it is to-day a dead letter in sections of the land. The question is, Shall it remain so, or shall it be again enforced and the terrible experiment repeated? Its enforcement means the return of negro rule, ignorant legislation, partisan appropriations, the sure revival of the deadliest animosity and race feeling, the paralysis of commerce, the disorganization of society. Can we demand that the South again pass through the ordeal from which she is just emerging, again prostrate herself at the feet of her former slave and later oppressor, relinquish her fond hopes of tranquillity and good government, all for the preservation of a statute that has worked the ruin of her dearest interests and whose direct violation has been her only means of redress? No, it cannot be asked! In the name of our common republican institutions, in the name of the liberties our common forefathers fought for and won, in the name of social development whose first and

greatest law it has violated, in the name of education whos temple it has destroyed, in the name of morality whose shrine it has polluted - it must not be asked! And it will not be asked. Social and religious sympathy, public and private liberality, the realization in the public mind of the dreadful condition, educational or property qualifications,

some or all of these will solve the problem, and the South will be freed from this dilemma, whose alternatives have been servitude with the fifteenth amendment or freedom without it.

REALITY AND LITERATURE.

MACLEAN PRIZE ORATION, BY C. W. McILVAINE, '85.

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"REALITY is God's unwritten poem, which human genius should write and make intelligible to his less gifted brothers." These words assert that there is a substance beneath the surface of reality, that the actual world is not composed of elements which make up an outward and purposeless show; but of real things, which combine with the meaning and the measures of a poem. Everywhere are the lines of this divine poetry. All facts of common experience, all objects in external nature, all thoughts with actual influence, are some hint of its rhythm, some harmony in its rhyme. Genius can read it. But what can make it intelligible to the less gifted? Can literature? Ask the critics.

There is one group who cry that this is a practical age. Tell them that reality is a poem, and they will laugh you to scorn. People to-day ask for plain, solid facts. Everything is material in its ends. Poetry of reality is a contradiction in terms. Literature is crowded out. If it exists at all, it is a luxury, an elegant pastime.

On the other hand, tell that group of critics, who already