“The triumph of democracy and white supremacy over mongrelism and anarchy, of civilization over barbarism, has been most complete,” said this king of the lynchmen to his inauguration crowd. “The whites have absolute control of the State government, and we intend at any and all hazards to retain it. The intelligent exercise of the right of suffrage . . . is as yet beyond the capacity of the vast majority of colored men. We deny, without regard to color, that ‘all men are created equal’; it is not true now, and was not true when Jefferson wrote it.”2
