The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-01 00:00:00

NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

Another State has given a decisive vote against
Negro Suffrage. Oa the 6th April the proposed
amendment to the State Constitution was sub-

mitted to the people of Michigan and defeated

by over 30,000 majority in a total poll of
110,000. If it required further evidence to
show the rock on which the Republican party is

likely to split, this vote supplies it. The negro is
fatal to all with whom he is connected ; and when

the last English soldier withdrew from the States at
the close of the revolutionary war, if vengeance was
in the mind of England she might have smiled com-

placently on the slave gift she left behind. It has
led to the ruin of the Southern oligarchy and to the
desolation of the Southern States. The South pre-
ferred the " domestic institution" to the Union, and
the North crushed the " domestic institution" and
preserved the Union. Yet the party who abolished
slavery and led in the great war may be destroyed
in its attempt to uphold the African race. No pre-
judice is equal to that of colour. Nature has so
broadly separated the children of JAPHET from the
-children of HAM that no legislation, no principles of
religion, of justice, or of constitutional right, and
no expediency can surmount the barrier. The Re-
publican party has taken a fast hold of a great prin-
ciple, and harnessed to this lumbering vehicle it has
gone at the barrier, and is more than likely to break
down in its efforts to overcome it. There is no
disguising the fact, nor is there any wisdom in the
attempt to do so. The leaders of the party are in
advance of the age ; and however noble and true
may be their doctrine we fear that it is imprac-
ticable, and will be so for many long years to come.
The Republican papers take amore cheerful view
of the subject, considering that time alone is re-
quired to overcome the prejudice, and that, how-
ever discreditable to the party, they must bow to
the necessity, educating the people by degrees up
to the point of political freedom and equal rights for
all. It is said that four-fifths of the Republicans
in Michigan would now vote for the amendment.
A short ;time ago not one-half would have enter-
tained the proposition, and not long hence nine-

tenths will vote for it. It is'one of those at
present repugnant propositions based on im-
mutable truth, and that truth must eventually
overcame tha prejudice. Still the position
of the Republican party in the face of the
prejudice is one of extreme difficulty. To
abandon the negro is to abandon principle ; is to
deny the inherent right of man to a voice in his
Government, which THAD:DEUS STEVENS declares is
the " denial of GOD." The conquered South had
negro suffrage thrust on it. But is the North to
enforce the rights of freedmen in the lately Confc-
derated States, and deny those rights to the negroes
who are fellow-citizens in their own States ? Upon
no reason can such a proposition be grounded, and
it stands out an inconsistency too gross for adoption.
In Michigan there are so few negroes that their
votes can scarcely affect the elections. There, as
well as in the other Northern States, the character
of the African race has been elevated by freedom
and contact with freemen unasseciated with slavery,
by education, and by religious culture. Few can
deny that the negro in these States is not as fit to
exercise the franchise as many of the ignorant im-
migrants fresh from Europe. They are American
citizens, born and bred on the soil. They know no
country but their State, and no interest uncon-
nected with it. Is it, then, possible for the com-
munity to deny the right of suffrage to the
coloured people among them, yet insist on that
right being bestowed on the lately emanci-
pated slaves in the South? In the Carolinas, in
Georgia, in Florida, and the Valley of the . Mis-
sissippi, the negroes in many localities are more
numerous than, the whites. For long generations
they have been held in bondage—the mere chattel
of the master. Without an idea beyond their day's
work, the food, and clothing supplied them, they
have grown up to manhood, and seen their shackles
struck off by the hand that struck down their mas-
ters. Is the brain that directed that hand to pro-
nounce these men not only free, but endowed with
the rights of free men in the United States, and at
the same time to withhold those rights from
the coloured people in the North ? Such a pro-
position cannot stand ; for it is based on the
grossest inconsistency and injustice. The right of
the Negro to vote must comprehend the race in the
United States as a whole, and be decided either in
the affirmative or in the negative. If it could be
decided affirmatively in one place and negatively in
another, it must be argued on the capacity of, the
Negro in different localities, which would be tanta-
mount to an acceptation of the principle, qualified
with the restriction of fitness. In that case, in

Michigan, in Ohio, Kansas, and other northern States
who rejected the principle, the Negroes would be
declared qualified for the suffrage ; while in the
Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, where the right
has been conferred, they would be pronounced unfit
for it. But this principle is not acted on, nor is
any other; the guiding star being simply prejudice.
It is impossible for the question to remain in this '
state; for it could not, as it stands, be endured.
Does Michigan intend that the Negroes shall vote
in the South, but that the Negro shall not vote in
Michigan ? If so, it is tantamount to the declara-
tion that the Southern whites shall be governed by
a race whose ballots shall not be permitted to
pollute the Northern elections, upon which they
could have no appreciable effect. If Northerners fast-
ened the shackles struck from the Negroes around
the necks of their late masters, they could not more
grossly insult them, and no words could more
strongly convey the subjugation of the South. To
be consistent, the defeaters of the Negro Suffrage
Amendment to the Northern States Constitutions,
must pronounce against the Congressional plan of
Reconstruction. There is no escaping this conclusion ;
and this means the total overthrow of the Republican
party. It may be said that no such issue was be-
fore the 'people of Michigan. But we maintain
that that is the issue, as distinctly before that State
as before Connecticut in the late elections. If the
Michigan Republicans, while pretending to hold to
their principles, have allowed their prejudices to
influence them in this matter, they have allowed
that prejudice to strike the most fatal blow at their
party. There is no escape
from this conclusion.
They must destroy the Radical platform and erect
a new one, for they bowl over every leader and
every measure of Congress for Reconstruction. If
the majority of the Northern States be opposed to
Negro Suffrage in them, they must be opposed to
Negro Suffrage out of them, for what is food for
the goose is food for the gander. Condemning the
whole policy of Congress, and supporting that of the
PRESIDENT. It is a farce for a Republican to vote
against Negro Suffrage as the party is constituted,
except on the principle of fitness, which, as we
have observed, would reverse the position taken,
giving Negroes the Suffrage in Michigan, Ohio,
&c., and refusing it in Louisiana, Florida, &c. Now

how does this Republican State propose to secure the
result of the war? To withdraw the troops and to
hand over the Southern States to the whites is to place
the party in power who prefer the domestic institu-
tion to the Union. To confer the Suffrage on igno-
rant Negroes is undesirable, but no one has yet pro-
posed a plan likely to hold water which can secure
to the blacks their freedom without this privilege.
If it could be accomplished the sooner the military
were.. withdrawn and the States left to reconstruct
themselves the better for all. But we fear this is
impossible ; and if the Michigan vote is to be taken
as an indication—as it surely is—of Northern opi-