Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1862-11-15
Ghe polpnesiam.
From " Fraser's Magazine" July, 1921
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
IN THE UNITED STATES,
ND ITS CON E Q U E n @ E S.
BY A WHITE REPUBLICAN.

The Civil War which has now been raging in the
United States for nearly fifteen months with
increasing 6erceness and fury. is calamity SD
enormous and 81 threatening that all the thinking
world may well be occupied with its causes and its
cure. 1t is not a war between rival nations not
a conflict between different races and religiOns
nor a contest between superior and inferior civil
zaton. 1t is simply and literally family quarrel,
Il fratricidal fight, proverbally the worst and wick
edest of all Ii is true, the South
claimed equal rights with the North in the
mon territories of the United States and had this
CLAIM, so long urged and so logically established,
been granted and guarded by a law of Congress,
there is doubt but the war would have been
| avoided, or at least post pOned. Such, we happen
to know, is the opinion of the late leading South
ern senators at Washington, who now leaders
of the g Great Rebellion - in the field. VicePres
ident Breckenridge, Senators Mason, Benlamin,
| Slidell, and jefferson Davis, demanded nuthing
more than this simple Federal guarantee of Equal
rights in the Territories" The North refused
what is considered concession (athough there
can be no concession in case of abstract right,
and hundred thousand human lives have already
been sacrificed To its inexurable decision. We do
not stop to the in dollars and cents,
to consider the vide-spreading disaster consequent
upon the destruction Ot the equilibrium of the
whole commercial world. Was the North wise
was it right in refusing these demands of the
merit of the controversy. and all the justice and
| equity of the conflict. In order to Judge more in
telligently and correctly to the rights and
wrongs involved in the strife, must first con-
sIder who and what constituted the authority OF
these war-making Powers. To this end let US look
a little anal lyticaly into the Federal Congress at
Washington; and see of what material the - as
sembled wisdom of the nation is composed. And
here come at to the root of all the evil,
rather to the result of the great underlying evil,
Unrestricted Suffrage, which has rent the Amer
lean Union asunder, and threatens to t0pple the
Model Republic " into hopeless heap OF ruins.
Was this war the will of the people! And is the
voice of the people the will Of God
To both of these questions give most EN-
phatic denial. The the work of drma-
gOgues, and Universal Suffrage the instrument
they used to bring it about Had the question of
equal rights in the territories been submitted to
the unbiased Judgment of the nativebnrn male cit
liens of the United States over twentyOne years of
age who could read the Constitution Of the United
States, there can BE- no doubt but overwhelming
vote would have been given in favor OF the South.
And yet IL mIjnrity of the so-caed representatives
of the people, in their Legislative capacity vote ad
yersey to the claims and interests of the South,
and secession. resistance, and open war are tile
logical and inevitable consequences. The Govern
ment of the country fails to emhody and express
the wisdom of the country, or even to enact the
will of the people. We therefore venture the
sertion that Government based upon unrestricted
suffrage can never he permanent; and that absO-
lute or unlimited Democracy is Il failure. The ex-
pertinent has been often tried, and always with the
same disastrous results. The Athenians tried it
the Romans tried it; the French tried it; and the
last and grdndest attempt of all is likely to prove
the most signal failure of all Democracy, or self
government. is very beautiful in theory hut it
do not work well in practice. 1t starts upon the
fundamental fallacy that the voice of the people
is the voice of God; - that mljnrity of numbers,
without regard To brains, have divine right to
rule. n dogma is more dangerous, not to say ab-
surd. Does any one believe that the pOpuace of
London to-day, if absolute free choice were given
it, would elect its wisest and hest citizen be its
chief magistrate! In the United States free suf-
rage has failed to elevate the nation greatest and
best men to be the nation rulers. Clay and Web
ster fell short of the White House and there is
better epitaph for the tomb of the former than his
own proud words :" would rather be right than
| be President"
| OF all the causes which have been named as
leading to the civil war in America, the balnt-box
| is the most radical and powerful. In the city of
| New York, for instance, where, in the year 1857,
no less than lS3 900 emigrants were landed from
all parts of Europe, consisting largely of that
miscellaneous class of vagabonds, paupers and
| culprts, who leave their country for their
country's good the annual of what is
called the foreign vote, is sufficient to turn the
scale in favor of the party that wins it either by
purchase or palaver. 1t is true that residence
of five years is required to make adopted citi-
zen : but the political wire-pulers of New York,
| in the heat of party excitement do not stick at
any little informalities of the law that stand in
the way of success and where there is no system
of registration there is little difficulty in stuting
the ballOtboxes and deciding the election with the
| illegal votes of these ignorant aliens. And thus
Democracy is demoralized, and all the most sacred
| rights of citizenship trfed with and trampled on.
In the empire city of New York, the vote of Mr..
Astor. the richest man in America (wurth 40 0O0
600 dollars 6efore the war, probably 20 .OO0.0 900
to-day), is nullif"d by some raw and ragged emf
| grant who cannot even speak the American Ian
guage, whose politics are bought for glass of
run and who does not know or care whether he
| is voting for General jackson or the Fourth of
July In the AthenIan city of Boston, the vote
of Mr.. Everett who is not only citizen of wealth,
but who represents the learning. the refinement.
and the Legislative wisdom of New England, is
also neutrallzed by a ballot cast by some newly
arrived fugitive from justice, escaped convict, par
| ish pauper, or Italian organ-grnder, who knows
little more OF the questions at issue than the di-
minutiSe mute that dances to his music
| lt Is always easier to trace the causes Of evil
than to point out the remedy; but the lesson of
all history is quite conclusive in regard to the utter
impracticability of unrestricted suffrage. Ii the
wisdom, the intelligence, and the benevOlence ut
the State entitled to rule the State, surely We
shall not find them in the popular voice OF The
masses. Ten righteous men, we are told. might
have saved the cities of the plain : and we be-
! lieVe that ten of the wisest men of the United
States would have saved the Union, had their
counsels been needed year and half ago spared
all the fraterna blood that has been wasted in this
unhOly war and cOnciliated and pacifcated
the people, that the opposing sections of the Re-
public might have lived on in harmony through
millennium of prosperity and peace. But mad
ness ruled the hour, and the golden opportunity
was lost for ever. The Resolutions introduced