Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-23
WHAT REPUBLICANS SAY.

| TO the Constitution of that State, restricting
the right OF voting, among adopted citizens, to
such as have been two years naturalized. The
amendment is to be submitted to the people.
| We hope that it may be voted down, and that
| the Republican party of the Commonwealth
will be pre-eninent in its opposition to the pro-
| posed change. Its due to the integrity of our
| organization, composed as it is, in part, of the
| masses the educated foreigners of all nation
alites that measure in itself SO unjust and I'M
| expected-one against which they supposed
that the Republican National Convention at
! Philadelphia, in 1856, had given them suff-
| cient guaranty-Should meet with its quietus
| by Republican hands. Good faith and fair
| dealing with those who separated themselves
| from the bogus Democracy to assist the party
| OF freedom in the accomplishment of the re-
| suits which 1t proposes--who have, for the sake
| of principle, been willing to fraternize with
Know Nothings their most deadly enemies
and who have, in their action on the national
! questions at issue between the parties display
ed degree of patriotism and fidelity which
many an American might initiate with advan-
tage-good faith to these demands, that there
should be 20 hesitation, no lodging, no COM
| promise in this thing. 1t must be killed. or
Republicansm in all the Northwestern and not
few of the Eastern States is needessly and
imminently imperiled.
The bugbear of Know Nothingism has lost
its terrors, and as might be expected of a body
of men who enjoy here the rational liberty that
| they have been denied elsewhere, they grow
more and more solcitous to preserve that liber-
| ty to themselves and hand it down to their chill
dren unimpaired. Massachusetts owes it to
| these men to put under foot the injustice
which her legislators have proposed.
From the Chicago Tribune of March 49,
| MASSACHUSETTS AND THE NATURALIZATION
| LAWS - Everywhere the Republicans, are
| speaking out manfully and Indignantly against
the recent action of the Massachusetts Legis-
| lature, in submitting to vote of the people of
that State proposed amendment of the Con-
sttution, whereby foreigners are to be depriv-
ed of the right to vote for two years after their
naturalization. There is no divided opinion
upon the subject in any of the free States of
the Union, and it is our deliberate conviction
that even in Massachusetts the Republicans
will vote in solid phaanx against it.
We notice that the Republican State Cen
trial Committee of Wisconsin have issued an
address, in which they disclaim, in behalf of
the Republican party of that State, any sym
pathy with the Massachusetts movement and
quote from the Republican platform of that
State to show that they are pledged against it.
This is well done, and we hope to see the
Republicans of every State in the Union unit
ing ia a solemn and emphatic protest against
the Massachusetts proposition.
During the recent contest in Wisconsin, the
Buchanan papers and speakers appealed to the
foreign voters to withdraw from the Republican
party, because of the Massachusetts amend
ment. The Republicans were so hard pressed
by these appeals that the State Committee was
called together and issued an address, signed
| 11xif hove Jofo Is J.
claring their adherence to the existing natural
ization laws, and against prescription on ac-
count of birthplace, and conclude as follows:
Standing firmly upon these principles, we
do not hesitate to declare, in behalf of the Re
publican party of this State, that we condemn
the passage of the Massachusetts, law to which
we have referred, as departure from our set
tied rules of action; we protest against it, as
being, in addition, uncalled for and unwise
| and we earnestly entreat the people of that
State to review the action of their representa-
tives, and to eface the single stain upon that
escutcheon which the Republicans of Massa-
chusetts have so noby borne"
The Republicans of st. Louis, harassed by
like appeals during their recent municipal cleo
ton, passed a resolution in the convention pro-
posed by that well known anti-savery orator,
B. Gratz Brown at a meeting in which Francis
| P. Blair, Jr., also participated.
! ResoIved That, while we disapprove of the
action of the Massachusetts Legislature, pro-
scribing adopted citizens, we are equally I'M
| willing ourselves to prescribe any of our own
| fellow citizens, and we therefore invite them
all, no matter what may have been their party
relations heretofore, to the support of our
nominees, for the sake of the cause of munich
| pal retrenchment.
From the Cincinnati Commercial, March 10.
MASSACHUSETTS AND THE RIGHT OF SUI
FRAGE.-The late legislation by which Massa-
chusetts seems about to restrict the rights of
her naturaized citizens, is re-acting in various
| quarters against the good name of the State.
| Several meetings of foreign-born citizens of
character and intelligence have already been
convened to denounce it. 1t seems strange, at
this period, when the last vestge of intoler-
ance seemed to have been swept from our DO
! litical councils, that a State holding the posi-
| ton of Massachusetts should institute back
ward movement. The law in question pro-
vdes for amending the Constitution of the
State, so that no na:uralized citizen shall exer-
else the right to vote, until he shall have re-
sided in the country two years after the issue
of his naturalization papers.
IL is not surprising that the intelligent Ger
man citizens in the principal cities, should be
holding indignation meetings over this matter.
The attempt to abridge their civil rights is one
which they cannot be expected to submit to
with tameness and indifference. They value
too highly the privileges OF American freeman
to take coolly this touch of invidious policy.
They feel, and feel justly, that after five
years probation, and their consequent full adj
mission, by solemn judicial forms, to citizen
ship, they should not, just at that interesting
moment, be treated as outlaws and aliens
They have served their full term of appren-
ticeship to Repubcanism and they are now
to be thrust back to wait two years longer, be-
fore they are deemed worthy to become cleo
tors.
| What renders this narrow policy of Massa-
chusetts the more garing in its inconsistency,
is that 1t comes from a State which has always
stood conspicuous for its devotion to the rights
of man. No State in the Union, except Vir-
ginia in the oden time,-has given utterance
to so much noble sentiment against every form
of tyranny, so many eloquent defences of hui
man rights. Her literature is alive with the
spirit of freedom her fame for producing
men of broad and catholic Sympathies for
lberality and intelligence isdtsurpassed Can
1t be that Massachusetts degenerating into
narrowness and intolerance ?--She is one Of
| the few States which allow to colored citizens