Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-10-30
Foreigners and the Right of Suffrage.

and splendid victory awaits you.
Foreigners and the Right of Suffrage.
We commence this morning the transfer
to our columns of an able paper which APP
peared some years since in the Southern
Literary Messenger, on the question Of suf-
frage and the rights of foreigners in that re-
spect. 1t is a clearly and strongly writ
ten document and we commend a careful
eading it. Next in Importance, if no.
paramount to the slavery question, is thai
of foreign influence in the administration o.
this government 1t may suit the purposes
of vile and corrupt crew of politicians to
underrate the danger TO our institutions to
be apprehended from this source, and to
take into their patronage the contents O.
European prisons and lazar houses, and use
them to carry out their nefarious projects,
but, day by day, are the American people
becoming aware that they are nursing in
their bosoms the elements of destruction to
their nationality. The fact is being forced
upon their observation 1t cannot be avoid
ed. Every election presents evidence o;
it. The statistics of the National and
Northern State elections for the past few
years prove that the foreign vote has held
the balance of power. In fact, any man
who will examine the subject with a mind
free from party bias must see that the cleo
tons of the day are in the hands Of men
who have no interest in the correct admin
istration of the government; who, by birth
and education are incapable to appreciate
the institutions under which they live; and
whose SURFACES can and are bought and
sold like merchandise in the market.
The question is forcing itself on every
American mind how long can our republic
can institutions, whose only security for
permanency is in the honesty and intelli-
gence of the voters, survive under such cir
eumstances? The grand idea in our sys-
TEN of government is that the people gov
ern, and under constitution adopted for
the promotion Of this end, a majority Of the
people control the action Of the govern
ment, and is not the proposition clear that |
if this majority be mainly composed of ig- |
norant, in6del, priest ridden, order-defying |
foreigners that it must exert most bane- !
full and deleterious influence on the counsels
which for the time rule the country 1t i
cannot be doubted. Nothing pure can
touch corruption without becoming more
or less polluted. Republican government
is the only true government, compatible
with the free development of the gifts
mental, moral and physical, with which
the Creator has endowed his creatures.
We have established such system on |
this Western continent away from the mon
arches and despotisms and tyrannies Of
the Old World, aud we believe it is SOL |
emn duty which we eve to Heaven and to |
ourselves, to preserve it intact and uReon-
taminaled from whatever will endanger a
retrogreSson to the condition Of gov
ernmeuts, and people less favored than our
selves. The influx OF the loeust-like swarms
of foreigners which blacken the blue sea on
their way to this country, aud the exercise
by then a few years. legally, aud in thou
sands Of instances upon their first landing,
illegally, OF the rights Of citizenship, will il
Of checked, prove our destruction. We
IL. to ~ oar Grecian horse, when
Il 4in b 90 iate. il indeed il be not al
ready 100 late. Taere is At this moment
sufficient number of foreigners in this coun-
try, if they could act in concert, to change
the form Of government. We do not sp- /