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DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
that if the activities of the Ku Klux Klan prevented the Negro from exercising his electoral rights there was no redress: for the Fifteenth Amendment, while it prevented the States from interfering with the electoral rights, did not prevent interference by private bodies.
What did the Republicans do ? Instead of amending the Constitution to give better and more effective guarantees to the Negroes, they agreed to recognize the Southern States and admit them to the Union, to grant general amnesty to the rebels and to withdraw the troops stationed therein leaving the Negroes to the tender mercy of their masters. As Mr. Apthekar says [1] :
“But the heoric fight of the Negro people and their allies for democracy, land and civil rights in the South was defeated chiefly as a result of shameful betrayal by the industrial and financial bourgeoise of the North. In 1877, the latter came to an understanding with the reactionary plantocracy of the South. Working through the reactionary wing of the Republican Party, the Northern big bourgeoise sold out the Revolution by giving the old slave oligarchy a free hand (home rule) in the Southern States. This ‘gentleman’s agreement’ meant disenfranchisement for the Negro, sharecropping peonage, lynch terrorism, and the loss of civil liberties and educational opportunities.”
The story of the betrayal is not complete. It is necessary to add that if the Republicans were to carry their party opposition with the Democrats into the South, the Negro could still be saved from damnation. For it is the opinion of those who know that if the Whites of the South were divided into Republicans and Democrats as they are in the North there is hardly a State in the South which would not be largely controlled by the Negro voters. Even the Republicans will not do. The Republicans seem to have entered into a compact with the Democrats not to canvass for the votes of the Negroes. Indeed, the Republican Party in the South does not exist. It does not exist because it is afraid of having to take sides with the Negroes.
The Untouchables cannot forget the fate of the Negroes. It is to prevent such treachery that the Untouchables have taken the attitude they have with regard to this “Fight for Freedom.” What is wrong in this ? Are they doing anything
- The Negro in the Civil War, pp. 45-46.