The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1857-07-11
(For the Minnesotian.)
The Constitutional Convention.


The formation of State Government fol
Minnesota isan event too big with future
consequences to escape the deep solicitude Of
oil rejecting men. A new Republic is to
spring into existence and take its place among
the commonwealth of the nation It is to
involve the welfare of millions, as in success
slVe generations they appear upon this soil
live, act, and march onward in their being.
History opens new account among civiIiz-
ed States, and prepares to write our honor or
our shame,as we prove blessing or curse to
mankind. And not hand is laid to this
sacred work, which, while it affects all our
present material and moral interest, touches
not also the living hearts of teeming millions,
for veal or for woe, who are to exist here
perhaps in all future time. How devoutly is
it to be hoped that no bigotry, nor ignorance,
nor prejudice, nor false principles, may be al
lowed to mar the civil fabric now to be rear
ed. 1t ought to be the most enlightened the
freest and noblest yet known among men, for
we have the examples of all the past.
Thousands of the best people of this Ter
ritory are anxiously asking, will the Con-
vention present to the people Constitution
instinct with the spirit of Freedom, and as
broad as the rights of man, or will it falter
before those terrible influences which have
long been consuming the vitals of American
Liberty! Will they give us Democracy
as pure as the Declaration of Independence,
or will they yield to aristocracy-to clanship
Ito caste and prejudice, and rob their work
of its highest glory Will they learn the
rights they are appointed to secure, from the
laws of God and of nature, or in the COM
plexion of the human skin! The following
reasons are offered why no such distinction
should be permitted in the Convention.
lst. 1t would be violation of fundamen-
tai right, radical wrong in principle. This
no candid man will question. And such
principles are the life-blood of organized So
ciety. They are in public what they are
in individual character, and never to be psrsis-
tently violated without ultimate ruin. While
we are indebted to the general fidelity to those
principles by our fathers for all we have dear
tous as nation, our history still affords most
impressive warning against even their slight
Infringement in the foundation of society,"
The whole land, Church and State, now
trembles at the consequences of their mis-
takes. And shall we blindly try the expert
ment over again?
I'd. While we oppose this wrong for its
violation of the rights of colored citizens, we
oppose it still more for its effects on the
whites. The injustice would pass from our
organic law into the character of our people,
impairing the love of liberty, bunting the
perception of justice, perverting the minds
of successive generations of our youth and
tending to the general corruption of the
State. Oppression Injuries the oppressor
more fatally than the oppressed, although it's
poison may not reach full development for
ages.
Sd. Because there is no ground for even
decent pretence of necessity for the use of the
word mhite in the Constitution. Were con-
siderable colored population in any manner
unfavorable to the general welfare, this reme-
dy would be perfectly futile. 1t would not
cause difference of one per cent. in fifty
years. The habits of such population, the
severity Of our climate, and the absence of
any peculiar and controlling motive, will al
ways prevent its immigration here to much
extent In Massachusetts and New Hamp-
shire the equal right of suffrage adds nothing
to this population, and in Maine, where this
right has already been perfect to colored
citizens and universally respected by society,
and where the whole frontier of the State is
in immediate contact by sea with the South,
the colored inhabitants are few, and the num-
Der probably diminishing. And this denial
of the elective franchise here would make no
difference in the amount of this population,
but be mere tyranny without an apology.
4th. We protest against this wrong op ac-
count of its inhumanity. 1t is we'll known
that the shareholders of the South find the
most formidable defense of their terrible sys-
tenn in the treatment Of colored people by the
free States. By this they parry every argu-
ment and hush every appeal. And is there
man so dead to every kindly emotion, SO
hardened into triple brass, as to wish to
throw the influence of this young and noble
State into the scale of merciless despotism,
and wantonly heap additional burdens upon
an injured race2
5th. We owe it to the country in its great
struggle for emancipation from the slave
power, to go before the Union with clean
hands, and garments as pure from oppression
as the frost breath of Heaven upon our win
ter prairies. The times demand it /; we have
the people to sustain it; the friends of Re
publican Liberty abroad wait to applaud it,
and other youthful States will be stimulated
to initiate so noble an example.
9Th. We strenuously protest against grad
uating mems rights by the color of the skin
in the organic law of this State, on account
of its eztreme meanness. Would any honor
able man say it were less than this, for great
and intelligent people to make a few poor
and unofending inhabitants the victims of
heir perpetual insult and injustice? Would
it be less, for Minnesota to hang out on all
her frontiers the broad scroll of her Consti.
tuition with the inscription-"Rights here de-
termined by the color Of the skin :" And if
one with noble head and heart, but an un.
constitutional skin, having heard that this is
a Republican State, that taxation and repre-
sentation 60 together, and that the Decla-
ration of Independence is heard of here, and
having seen even the most debased foreign
ers speedily and fully entrusted with the
right of voting-if he approaches the ballot
box to discharge the duty of man and q
citizen, the state government becomes q
board of Skin Commissioners, inspects and
drives him from the polls. And if he appeals
to the Judiciary Of this Christian State, it
must lay aside its robes of justice, prosecute
this cutaneous examination ike Jockey,
bring witnesses perhaps from all pats of the
land, drag his own mother, it may ee. into