the policy of negation; that the present attitude of the leaders of all parties upon these issues is quite mixed; that civil-service reform is a more important factor in politics, and a more favored subject than civil rights; that the position of the leaders upon this question has long ago convinced him that the greatest factor in modern civilization is the independent voter; that party platforms are a mere substitute of words for things, a cloaking of the ignorance and aspirations of the leaders under a variety of ingeniously-devised word-fabrics of more colors than Joseph's coat, which those unfortunate and usually uninformed persons called party voters have the simplicity to regard as the Delphic oracles of the political campaign.' For these reasons, he submits to the convention the propriety of permitting the much-vexed civil rights to repose in that mausoleum of all dead promises, where the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution lies buried. He understands that the courts of final resort have determined the amendments to be 'self-executive;' that this is assuredly a practical interment of Civil Rights with the most solemn and splendid ceremonies, after preparation extending over nearly a quarter of a century. 'If,' he argues, 'the Amendments permit no intervention of the courts, although every citizen in the State violates their letter and spirit, then, unless the States attempt to galvanize new life into the question by unfriendly legislation, which these very Amendments inhibit, the resurrection of that which is believed to be stone-dead can be productive of no good result to that race, or its baptismal sponsor, the Republican party; that, although the nation's covenant has been sealed with the white and the black man's blood, yet surely the courts, if it so please them, can determine that our public servants are at liberty, if it be more agreeable to their interests or to the prejudices of their patrons, to override the spirit and letter of that solemn compact. That civil rights have since these decisions lost much of their importance in the eyes of the cultivated descendants of those who risked their all to rescue the nation from the jaws of bankruptcy, by accepting bonds at one-half their face value with a legal rate of interest, and with only the collateral security of the national credit in pawn,—a liberality which was repaid by the advance of the stock. That the principal of the debt is
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