Quasqueton guardian. (Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1856-1858, 1857-01-03
THE DEMOCRACY EXERCISED.

re-" We know of nothing more anus
ing nowadays, than to take up some of
our pseudo democratic contemporaries,
and listen to the rawlings, and winnings,
and Explanations Of holy horror, which
has been elected from them by the pas
sage of a bill through our Legislature ma
king Mulattoes, Indians, and Negroes
competent witnesses in our Courts in the
trials of Whites. They are sorely exer-
cised, and their usually blatant tones are
mingled with piteous means over the in
eyitable consequent degeneracy of the
white race, which their prophetic visions
see in the future. Our usually amiable
and harmless neighbor, the Dubuque Er-
press and Herald, has been thrown into a
paroxysm of fright because of it, and
raves of abolitionism and Black Republi-
canism equal to the South Side Democrat,
Father TooMBs, or the Little Giant"
while its dear friend and political chum,
the North Vest, who invariably becomes
rabid at the thought of q " Niger" and
who has been regularly serving up to its
readers n daily rehash of its pet exple-
tives of Black Republican Traitors"
"decp-dyed Abolitionists,' etc, has
been able to add another word to its pre-
cious vocabulary, and they are daily in
formed that Republicanism means CANAL
gamation." These editors are seized
with a tremor of apprehension at the
step our Legislature has taken, and are
ready to collapse at heresults which their
excited ~imaginations have injured up
viz: a future extension of the right Of
citizenship to colored persons, a general
wal of abolitionism consequent thereup-
on, an immediate conspiracy of the 27l
colored persons in our State for the pur-
pose of swearing away the lives Of the
600, o00 whites, the probable contingent
cy of them all being Othellos, and most
of our maids Desdemonas, producing
amalgamalion and the elevation of the
colored over the white race.
Such is the picture these astute jour
nails are holding up as the denouement of
this just and righteous act. Had not our
Legislature better pause before they take
results, of which, we are sure, they
never dreamt, and which required the
penetrating gaze Of dough-faced Democ-
racy to determine. What matters it if
New England says she finds negroes no
oftener guilty of perjury than whites ?
what is New England's experience ON
pared with the sagacious ken Of these
oracular journalists ? What if New
York says she finds that colored people
are human, and is certain that they didn't
swear away the lives of the whites, nor
steal away their daughters, nor inaugu-
rate a war of abolition, when she told
them so-what is New York's judgment
and New York's knowledge compared to
the deductions of these logical gentle
men What if Ohio says she believes
it is not right and just that if one white
nan assaults another, and a colored man
happens to be the only witness, that the
assailing party should go unpublished, and
the assailed have no means of redress,
merely because the impartial witness of
the transaction happened to be denomi-
mated colored, though his skin may be
the whitest of the three-but what is the
opinion of Ohio, and of Pennsylvania,
and Of New Jersey, when balanced with
that of these omniscient editors ? No
thing-absolutely nothing-and now,
gentlemen representatives, you had better
hasten to a reconsideration of this mat
ter, and contemning former experiences,
and disregarding all the claims which
Justice and humanity have upon you,
back from the advance you have
made, and quiet the fraternal, paternal,
and patriotic fears of these imaginative
gentlemen.