The Howard union. (Glasgow, Mo.) 1865-1866, 1865-07-20
Negro Suffrage in the North.

Inc DdllY ADVERTISER, III an eulOTlal OI
Friday, states that it is no new thing in the
South for free blacks TO vote, and after cit
ing the cases of Maryland North Carolina
and Tennessee, in all of which free negroes
once voted, though they no longer have that
privilege, concludes its article as follows;
"The whole of the historical evidence, we
may add, goes TO show that in general the
Southern people in the early days of the
Republic, looked less TO color than to real
qualification as a test for the extension of
the franchise, and that when free blacks
were excluded, it was less by reason of COL
or than of essential unftness. How thor
oughly all this is now reversed, we hardly
need say"
All this is partly true, but it is not the
whole truth. Whether intentionally or not
the impression which the article leaves up
on the reader is that the change of counte-
nance towards the free blacks in the South
ern States, or rather tie three enumerated,
is one Of the consequences, or results, of
slavery. But to prove this position, it wod
be necessary to show converse, or oppo-
site feeling toward the free blacks in the
non-slaveholding States. But how stands
the fact ?
AT this moment the negro votes in Maine,
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts
and Rhode Island, and nowhere else. An
amendment to the Constitution Of Connecti-
cut, allowing the colored men to vote, is
about to be submitted TO the people, and will
probably be adopted by the people, though
such proposition has been more than once
rejected by them before, In New York
property qualification is exacted from The
negro before he can vote, which practically
excludes him; no such qualification being
imposed upon the white man.
Tennessee, slaveholding State, was ad-
mitted TO the Union in 1886, and the free
blacks were allowed 10 vote till the amend.
ment to the Constitution IN 1884. But
down to this day the free negro is not al
lowed 10 vote in any nom -slaveholding State
which has been admitted to the Union since
the adoption of the Constitution, except Yer.
mont and Maine. In not one of the States
carved out of that Northwestern territory,
which was plucked out Of the paw of sla-
very by our fathers, is the negro allowed to
vote. And, stranger still, by the Topeka
Constitution Of Kansas, the child that was
begotten OF free-soiism, negroes were not
allowed to vote, though civilized Indians,
who have adopted the habits of the white
man, were SO allowed. And that Constitu-
\ tinn contained clause instructing the first
Legislature that should meet under 1t 10
pass law excluding negroes and mulattoes
from the soil Of the Territory-which clause
was adopted by the people by large ma.
iority.
How far such of the New England States
as allow the negroes 10 vote have a right Ia
take any great airs on themselves by reason
thereof, may be better judged of after no.
ticing the proportion which blacks bear tc
whites in their aggregate population. That
population stands thus in the four most
Northern States
Name. to 472.
Vermont. .................l to 449.
New Hampshire, ......... Il to 65l.
Massachusetts. ............ l to l2I
In Rhode Island where, lowing 10 the
Quaker element in the population the ne
groes have been treated with peculiar kind
ness, and where too, the climate is more
favor able 10 them than in the States aboYt
enumerated, the proportion is 10 42.
Or put the disproportion in another way
By the census OF 1860 the whole number
of the colored population in the free State
was 225 1909. Of these, 1920 only hav'
the elective franchise, being about 7 pc
cent. of the whole number.
Now we beg leave 10 say that. we hav'
no sympathy with injustice in any shape
whether that race be the Chinese in Cali
lornia, the Indian in Minnesota, or the blacl
, man anywhere; and further we corcede L
our Republican friends that any rule Of Law
, excluding a man from the elective franchs
by reason of color alone is an unjust dis
elimination, But before we of the Moth
ern and always free States can earn tn
right of agitating the question of negro suf
frage in the States which were SO recentl
!, slave States, we have much yet to 90; AM
until this is done we have no right to tall
about their injustice 10 the free negro, or
assume any superiority over them on thc
> score.
Let us take the five great States of Ne,
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Ill
nois. In four of them the negro does nj
4 vote at al, and in the flth only on cond
o tions that practically deprive him of Ii
|. right. Now all these States are at th
!. moment under Republican rule. Therefor
n lei the negro be allowed to vote freely an
IS unrestrictedly in all these States, and the
IS having done this act of justice ourselves
!, we snnall be in condition TO urge a corre'
nonding concession upon the Souther
!" States. But until this is done, with VIII
:, :, sort Of face can any speaker or writer fro
I, any one of those States reprOach Georgia
y Alabama from Withholding from the negro
y, privilege which he does not enjoy gym. in mo
y Of the Northern and always free States.
y. ". In Pennsylvania alone The cOlored pop
y lation is more than three times as numero
~ y as in all the FIVE New Eng land States whe
the colored man votes, Let her lead |
ed way in the path of justice, ard show towar
in the black man the spirit which her inm'
nic tal founder showed towards the lndiaI
les But so long as only about seven per cent
at. The whole colored population in the Nor
sy- ern States is allowed to vote, we only sh
on. by our agitating the subject OF negro S
|, TO frage in the Southern States that we HI
our a conscience very sensitive to other p
oht n