The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-08-02
Gen. Garlleld's History Of Suf.
frage.

In recent speech delivered by the gallant
Gen. GARFIELD at Ravenna, Ohio, he showed
conclusively that freemen of color exercised
the right of suffrage in all the States in the
early days of the Republic, and that they
were deprived of it in one State after another
as the people gradually turned doughface and
submitted to the manners, the morals and the
principles of the shareholders of the South.
Negro suffrage, instead of being an innova-
ton of modern fanaticism, is in accordance
with the good old custom Of our fathers in
Revolutionary days.
The denial of the right of suffrage to a free
man, on the ground of his color, was an orig
inal invention of the old Tory State of South
Carolina, and now that South Carolina poll
ties have ceased to rule the country it is time
we should return to the principles and prac-
tice of the fathers, during whose days all
freemen exercised the right of suffrage.
Gen GARFIELD said:
l. During the war Of the Revolution, and
in 1888, the date of the adoption of our ma
tional Constitution, there was but one State
among the thirteen whose constitution re-
fused the right of suffrage to the negro. That
State was South Carolina. Some, it was
true, established q property qualification, all
made freedom a prerequisite, but none save
South Carolina made color a condition of suf.
frage.
2 The Federal Constitution makes no such
distinction, nor did the Articles of Confede-
ration. In the Congress of the Confedera-
ton. on the 25th of June, 1898. the fourth
article was under discussion. 1t provided
that ..The free inhabitants of each of these
States shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of free citizens of the several
States.
The delegates from South Carolina moved
to insert between the words .sfree inhabi-
tantsH the word s'white,' thus DENYING the
privileges and immunities of citizenship to
the colored man. According to the rules of
the Convention. each State had but one vote
Eleven States voted on the question. One
was divided. Two voted aye, and eight voted
no. (See Elliot's Debates, vol. !, y. 99.) 1t
was thus early, and almost unanimously de-
cided that freedom, not color, should be the
test of citizenship. [Applanse.
3. No Federal legislation prior to 1912
placed any restriction on the right of suffrage
IN consequence of the color of the citizen
A'uiih- AHat Ptitou SOHkicss pdsscu tru sep
arate laws, establishing ten new territories
In all these, freedom, not color, was the basis
of suffrage.
4. After nearly a quarter of century of
prosperity under the Constitution, the spirit
of slavery SO far triumphed over the early
principles and practices of the Government.
that, in 1872, South Carolina and her follow
ers in Congress, succeeded In inserting the
word white in the suffrage clause of the act
establishing a territorial government for Mis-
sour. One by one the slave States, and many
OF the free States, gave way before this cru
SADIE of slavery against negro citizenship.
D. In 1917, Connecticut caught the infec-
ton, and in her Constitution she excluded
the negro from the ballot-box. In every
other New England State this ancient right
of suffrage remained and still remains undie-
turbed.
8. Free negroes voted in Maryland until
1888 in North Carolina till 1885 in Penn
sylvania ill 1888. 1t was the boast of Cave
johnson, of Tennessee, that he owed his cleo
ton to Congress in 1928. to the free negroes
who worked in his mills. They were excIud-
ed from suffrage in 1884, under the new Con
stitution of Tennessee, by vote of 23 to 33.
As new States were formed, their constitu-
tons for the most part excluded the negro
from citizenship. Then followed the shame
full catalogue Of black laws-expatriation and
ostracsm in every form, which have so deeply
disgraced the record of legislation in many of
the States