So we called a constitutional convention, and we eliminated, as I said, all of the colored people we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments....

The brotherhood of man exists no longer, because you shoot negroes in Illinois, when they come in competition with your labor, and we shoot them in South Carolina, when they come in competition with us in the matter of elections." Such a miscarriage of Republican policy was long a bitter grievance to the leaders of the party and incited them to action.

If they could have had their desire, they would have used stringent means to remedy the situation.

Measures to enforce the political rights of the freedmen were frequently agitated, but every force bill which was presented had to encounter a deep and pervasive opposition not confined by party lines but manifested even within the Republican party itself.

Party platforms insisted upon the issue, but public opinion steadily disregarded it.
Apparently a fine opportunity to redress this grievance was afforded by the election of President Harrison in 1888 upon a platform declaring that the national power of the Democratic party was due to "the suppression of the ballot by a criminal nullification of the Constitution and laws of the United States," and demanding "effective legislation to secure integrity and purity of elections." But, although they were victorious at the polls that year, the Republican leaders were unable to embody in legislation the ideal proposed in their platform.