It is wholly incapable of attracting Southern whites in sufficient numbers to raise it to the rank of a party of opposition, or to give to it the barest chance of achieving success at the polls.
He discusses the inability of the political party to gain traction among Southern whites, highlighting systemic barriers.
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More from Archibald Henry Grimké
Not at all, for they are most important, but without the ballot they are impotent to give the relief so much needed in the South.
That colored men with the ballot should be rated in terms of the political game higher than other colored men who have it not, violates no rule of business ethics.
Such a proposition, the Republican Party is incapable of making for reasons already pointed out, and the Democratic Party for other and obvious reasons is precluded from offering.
And yet if relief is ever to come to the Negro in the South, it must come to him by the way of an opposition party, which will put an end to the political solidity of that section by introducing into it bi-party in place of its one-party…