The Portland daily press., 1865-07-06

and incapable of improvement, and so to be
i deprived OF every stimulus and instrumental
ty for rising and bettering their condition? It
so, then there is organized in our American
Society the elements of certain and terrible
danger; and you who consent to it will make
4 the mistake that our fathers fell into when,i in
forming the Constitution, they permitted the
! continuance of slavery, and without the ex-
ctses which they could plead-for at that time
slavery was legal in nearly all the States. And
besides the necessity for extricating the country
from a condition of anarchy was So strong and
exigent that a departure (as it was believed for
a brief period only) from the straight line Of
principle, had an excuse which cannot be set
| up at this time. There is now no serious diff
ficulty in the way of duty. 1t is indeed plain
er and easier to carry out the true policy than
4 the false. 1t always is, if men but knew it.
i -Four millions of people cannot live in this
country as underlingsA and ontcasts without
bringing upon it a terrible retribution,s Let it
pause before committing itself to policy SO
weak and so wicked as to require that they
should, and SO utterly inexcusable, too. The
example and condition of these people will OPP
crate directly upon the other race. Either the
whites will raise up the blacks, or the latter
will draw down the former -one or the other
1 this is the law, eternal and Interchangeable, and
/ as wise as it is sure.
4 y Are this people struck with judicial blind
ness that they will not learn wisdom in any
school, even in that of an experience so fresh
and dear as theirs has been, and whose divin-
| est lesson was s,fs.si..5
| ~ ~ g A mans a man for a. that ?' n
4 If they commence by denying to the negro
his manhood and equal rights, no improve
ment will be open to him. The gates of edu-
cation and progress will be closed upon him as
4 they would by such treatment upon any class:
form punishment ofso bad an act, the fate ofthe
oppressor would be to goTffom worse to worse.
Men hate those whom they injure, and famil
iarity with wrong and its practice, makes them
not gentler and wiser but harder and more be-
sotted. An ayenging Nemesis follows them
| with unerring and relentless certainty. And
4 in this case we should find that after the adop-
ton of policy 0finequaityand injustice tow
ards the negro, every days experience would
render more difficult the Inauguration of a diff
ferent and better one. Meanwhile, earnest and
/ wise men would agitate for reform and Justice;
/ they would be prosecuted, imprisoned possibly,
| perhaps mobbed and murdered; then their adj
| herents would increase in numbers and power:
| until, at length In another convulsion, perhaps
more dreadful than the last, the question of
the nations right to live would be tried again.
1t is sometimes said that it win be all right
| to give the negro the ballot by and-by, and that
| it must be done when he is educated for the
/
ballot and all its aids and announcements, how
can he acithout it? To secure his education,
these men would close all its opportunities
| against him. To increase his self-respect and
quicken his manly sensibilities, they insist that
he is only fit for mean employments.i They
tell him that he is a dog and then punish him
because he is not philosopher-this is their
| justice. They whip him out of church, and
| abuse him for not being christian. Allow him
1 no vote and ask him to love the law. They
| give him no country, but expect him to fight
| for, theirs. In this way, in such schools and
by such incentives they propose to educate the
! black man! rf aa
The country does better and more wisely,
/ because more justly, by the ignorant of our
own race; it furnishes them helps, steps, i'm
| plements, inducements and announcements.
Does the black man need these aids morc y l.,..r
| the white ?-then why with lasal=sHenG Ii ne
requires naoLe, why give him lessY we 40
not tell the foreigner, who cannot even speak
our language, and who can read and write
in none, Prepare yourself, become edu-
| Gated and intelligent, and then you shall have
1 the elective franchise" We rather say, !" Be
| one of us, and that you may be as speedily and
| thoroughly as possible, no hand shall bear you
down, no eye shall froWn upon you no heart
shall contemn you-take all the uplifting agen-
| cies we can give and use them the best you
may" This is the nntion poifcy so5rzsrtap sise-
! foreigner, and it is wise and safe, because it
makes of him and his children at the earliest
period good and useful citizens
Have the nations found security or advaIl,
tase ia the policy against which contend?
| Ask your own, from which the thunders of
| heavens wrath have scarcely rolled away, if
| the enslavement since its foundation, of race,
| has added to its strength, prosperity, honor
or whether it has not been the parent of inn
| measurable woes !? Ask England, whether her
| treatment of Ireland has educated and elevat-
11k c0f4f, 1o+
love her? Whether it has made her secure
and strong, and therefore been wise policy,
or whether it has been tremendous mistake !?
Be assured, fellow citizens, the safe policy is
that of truth and principle. Give the negro
freely; give him greatly; give him the best you
have for him, your confidence, and respect, and
justice, and he will give you in return security,
strength and loyalty. Read, | pray you, the
i Constitution of your country in the broad and
simple light in which our Secretary of State
has informed us he always reads it. Said Gov.
Seward in speech at Madison, Wis, in 1860 !:
" It has been by simple rule of interpreta-
ton that / have studied the Constitution of
my country. That rule has been this:v That
by no word no act, no combination into which
4 I might enter, should any one human being of
the race to which belong, much less any class
of human beings of any nation, race or kim
dred, be repressed and kept down in the least
degree in their efforts to rise to higher state
of liberty and happiness Amid all the gloss
i es of the times, amid all the essays and discus
sions to which the Constitution of the United
States has been subjected, this has been the
simple, plain, broad light in which have read
every article and every section of that great
/ instrument, and whenever it requires ofme that
this hand shall keep down the humblest of the
human race, then i will lay down power, place,
position, fame, everything, rather than adopt
such a construction or such rule. If there
fore, in this land there are any that would rise,
I extend to them, in Gods name, good
4 speed. 81 5o5ss snso3 itasss I'd ,fanS q
i A word more upon the question of what is
demanded by considerations of prudence and
safety. There is now IN the recently slave
i holding States, a, population of African de-
scent, of 100000. Before the emancipation,
:. these people constituted a population for pur-
poses Of representation in Congress of 24O0,-
900, which is increased by the abolition Of
slavery, 100000. Now, as the representatives
in Congress are limited and fixed BY law, the
number required by this enlarged Southern
representative basis, must of course, proper
Il tionably reduce the Northern representation.
The former slave-holding States will gain and
4 the Northern will lose, relatively, some TWEEN
ty-six members of Congress by the removal of
4 slavery. Unless, then, suffrage goes to the col
ored man, the act of abolition, in its political
bearing simply, increases the power of his OPP
pressor and diminishes that of his friend. 1t
strengthens the rebel at the expense of the pat
riot. The negro, although part of the popu-
lation upon which representation is founded,
is to have no voice in the election, and his in
terests are committed not to his friend, nor to
one Indifferent to him. but to his enemy. For
why? he has no rights which a white man
is bound to respectn No rotten borough sys-
tenn in any country in Europe is half SO inde-
fensible and unjust as this, which makes man
contribute directly to his own injury and loss.
,. Again, the colored men are, as a class, the
true and reliable Union men of the South and
if the Union is to be fully saved, and its inter
ests upheld in that section, their votes are in
dispensible- without them, the legislation and
policyof the late rebel States will be controlled
by men who will not only take care to reduce