Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-04-28
SENATOR WILSON AND THE TWO YEARS
AMENDMENT.


r:-You express, in your note, the fear
that the adoption by the people of Massachu-
sets OF the Two Years Amendment will pref
udlce the Republican cause in the country, and
the hope that it will be promptly voted down.
GU are not, my dear sir the only devoted
friend of the anti-slavery cause who entertains
this fear and expresses this hope. Before |
LETT Washington several of our most devoted
and distinguished men-sueh men as Mr.. Har-
Ian, MIR. Doolittle, Gov. Grimes, and Gov.
Bingham-expressed to me their profound re-
greet that the proposition had received the
sanction of the Legislature and their earnest
hope that the people would reject it. Since
my return home | have received, especially
from the Northwest, many letters expressing
the opinion that the Republican cause would
be preIudiced by its adoption, and the strong
est desire that it should be rejected. That the
Republicans, outside of Massachusetts, are
quite unanimously opposed to hisamendment,
Is manifest to every man OF ordinary ntelli-
gence. The voice of the Republicans Of the
Northwest has been most emphatically pro-
nounced through the public press and the SEN
timent of our Republican associates in other
sections is manifestly against its adoption.
Pending the late election in your State, | en-
gagged tor two weeks in the canvass many Re
publicans declared to me their opposition to it
no one expressed to me his approval of it.
Upon us of Massachusetts alone rests the re-
sponsibllity; and whether it shall be adopted
or rejected, whether its adoption or rejection
will be for good or for evil, for honor or dis
honor, we, the Republicans Of Massachusetts-
not the Republicans of other States-must
bear the entire responsibility After manifest
ing, as our Republican friends of other States
have done, their opposition to its adoption, and
after receiving, as they have received from its
advocates here, significant hints that it is To-
cal question, State ISSUE which they would
not be permitted to interfere with, they ought
not surely to be compromised by our adoption
of proposition against which they have enter
ed their emphatic protest.
That the adoption of this two years amend.
met will, as you suggest, work harm to the
Republican cause in the country, no man, who
understands the condition of public affairs and
the relations of political parties, can for a mo-
ment doubt The Republican party is pledged
to the doctrine embodied in the Declaration of
Independence that call men are created
equal, 1T deems human slavery a continual
and prominent violation of human rights and
it proposes to vindicate the inalienable rights
of men by prohibiting slavery in the territor-
les, destroying its influence as an element of
political power in the government and placing
the nation entirely on the side of equal, uni
versal and impartial liberty. In this age, when
the sublime words of the Declaration of indie
pendence are scoffed and jeered at, and mil
lions of men are declared to have no rights
which we are bound to respect this position of
the republican party is high and noble one.
1t will be held to strict responsibility for its
lofty professions of regard for the equal rights
of man. Every failure of the republicans or
any portion of the republicans, of any state,
to act up to the idea that "al men are created
equal, will harm the republican cause in all
the states. How often have we of Massachu-
sets, where the equal rights of all men are
acknowledged and protected by law, been
tainted with the action Of some of our repub-
lican associates in supporting the odious black
laws which dishonor some of the free states,
and with the refusal of some of the free states,
your own State of Connecticut among them,
to secure to the colored man the right of suf-
frage. If the Republicans of Massachusetts
adopt this proposed amendment, the republi-
cans of other states will be reproached and
tainted for this action of their associates.
They will be told, as they have already been
told, that Massachusetts allows the ignorant,
brutaliZed, fugitive negro slave to vote after a
residence of one year, while she requires of
the Englishman, the Scothman, the Irishman,
the German, and the Frenchman, who may
have resided five years within her limits,
further residence of two years after he be-
can be allowed the right of suffrage. Mass
achusetts will be held up, as she has already
been, before men jealous of their own rights,
as the fountain-head of anti-slavery, the cita-
del of republicanism, and this act of hers will
be branded as an act of intolerance, bigotry
and fanaticism. And these denuncationS and
appeals cannot but mslead and deceive in
other states, as they did in your state at the
last election, some men who are just beginning
to see and to realize that the great contest in
America between freedom and slavery, be-
tween free territory and slave territory, be-
tween free labor and slave labor, is battle
for the toiling millions of every race and kim
dred. Republican presses and speakers in
other states will be forced to meet a sterner
contest, to win the victory for freedom, which
our action may delay but cannot arrest.
This two years amendment is intended to
correct an admitted evil. During the past
few years, q practice has grown up which
must receive the condemnation of men who
wish to keep our elections free from talsehood,
fraud and corruption. refer to the practices
of party committees, by which men are hunt
ed up, rushed in crowds to the courts and
their naturalization papers procured and paid
for by such committees, to affect a pending
election. The effect of this pernicious prac-
tice is to induce, in some cases, falsehood and
fraud, and to make many Of the men thus nat
uralized the tools Of the men who pay for their
papers. The advocates of this two years
amendment believe that its adoption will tend
to correct these abuses, and many good men
will vote for its adoption who have no preiu-
dice against men born in other lands, Did
the proposed amendment require only of the
adopted citizen residence OF one year in the
State after naturalization before he could ex-
ercise the right of suffrage, the same time now
or six months residence in the town, the same
time now required of our own native-born cit
liens, all the benefits hoped for by the advo-
Gates Of this amendment would be secured,
and little if any opposition would be made
to it from any quarter of the country. But
the amendment in its present form seems to
have an invidious and offensive distinction
against men who were born i'll other lands.
That there are great abuses growing out of
the loose administration of the naturalization
laws, especially in our large Atlantic cities and
towns, all fair-minded men must admit. 1t
has appeared to me that these admitted abuses
could be remedied, either by the modification
or revision of the naturalization laws, or by a
reform in their administration, and have ever
been ready in any practicable mode consistent
with the equal rights of all men to reform these
acknowledged evils But have ever declared
that would support no measure, even to reform
these abuses, which would in the slightest de-
gree degrade any man or class of men; that L
would give to every human being equal rights,
the same equality would claim for myself or
my son. No power on earth could force me
to vote for any proposition which tair-minded
and intelligent men felt to be unequal or per.
sonaly degrading. Never have l supported
any measure inconsistent with the equal rights
of men but if l had ever Internationally
| made guch n mistake | have nothing of that