The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1865-06-07
Citizenship and RIectership.

Citizenship and EIectership.
The colored suffrage is now a necessity
| But beyond this, in making it an essen
| tial condition of the restoration of rebel
states to the Union. we follow, first the
| law of reason and Of nature, and second
ly, the Constitution, not only in its text,
but as interpreted by the Declaration
of Independence. BY the Constitution
| it is stipulated that the United States
shall guarantee to every state repub-
lican form of government but the
meaning of this guaranty must be found
in the Declaration of Independence,
which is the controlling preamble of the
Constitution Beyond all question the
United States, when called to enforce
this guaranty, must insist on the equal
ity of all men before the law, and the
consent Of the governed. Such is the
true idea of republican government
according TO American institntiOns.-Mr
Summers Fdst-Day Grafton
Let us examine, for a moment, this
proposition of the senator from Massa-
chusetts Must the federal government
enforce unirersality of suffrage, in order
to guarantee to every state republl-
can form of government {" We doubt
Is it needful that oven all citizens have
the jus sufragii," in order to secure re-
publican form of gOyernmet, Clearly
not. Males under twenty-one years OF
age are citizens. but they do not eXer-
ercise the right of suffrage. Native-born
citizens who are paupers are, by the laws
of most states, not permitted to be cleo
tors There are plenty of cases where
citizens. constituent members of the po-
ltical sovereignty, do not vote.
What does Mr.. Sumner say to the uni
form treatment of Indians by his own
State These colOred children of the
soil-the real native Americans-have
never in Massachusetts,, been considered
citizens of the State, nor citizens of the
United States, nor permitted to vote.
Under existing naturalization laws they
cannot become citizens. They have al
ways been considered domestic subjects of
the Government, and yet Massachusetts,
has been looked upon as having "a re-
publican form of government"
In the State Of New York, Indians are
der somewhat siInilar disabilities.
or the decisions OF the courts Oh uno ouu'o
of New York, and it becomes at once ap-
parent that copper-cololed persons, are
not citizens. but dependent individuals
placed under our protection, and subject
to guardianship, and proper coercion.
So, too, our constitutional provisions
respe citing qualifications of voters show
that a State may have republican
form of government" and yet discrlmin-
ate in favor of, and also among, white
persons. The second article of the fund
amental law of New York provides that
"eyery male citizen" &c, "who slfall
have been a citizen for ten days,
shall be entitled to
vote" But, in the very next sentence,
il proyides that no man of color" shall
vote unless he shall have been citizen
for three years, &c 1t is clear, from the
constitution of the Empire State, that
the phrase every male citizen" was not
intended to embrace "men of color" or
"persons of color" so far as electorship
is concerned. :,
Who has ever insisted on the political
eoualitv of white men and Indians
But worse than all this, it is not eight
wears ago when Mr.. Sumner and the
whole opposition to the Democratic par
ty were engaged in a scheme so to
amend the constitution of the State OF
Massachusetts as to, pro tdnt0, disfran-
chise for two years naturalized white
foreigners. They proposed to prevent a
naturalized Irshman or German from
voting even after he had become clti-
zen of the United States, and when Dem
ocrats appealed to the Constitution, Mr..
Summer and his friends pointed to the re-
served right of the commonwealth to
regulate voting, as the State saw tit. Has
il como to this, that, out of zeal for Afrl'
cans, Mr.. Sumner proposes now to ele-
yate them, as class, above white Euro
peans
Mr.. Sumner knows, or ought to know,
| that the terms citizen and elector are
not, under our system, convertible terms.
| There is no inseparable connection be-
tween the fact of citizenship and the ex-
ercise of the rights of suffrage, except
that the latter cannot exist in the absence
of the former More than that, he will
find, the more deeply hepenetrates into
the body of our public law. that those
persons who were slaves before have not
beep made cirizens, either by the emauci,
nation proclamation or the constitutions
al amendment that electorship of ma
tive. born persons, without citizenship, is
an absnrdity on its face; and that, under
our present Federal Constitution, there
is no power in Congress to make ma
tive-born person a citizen OF one OF the
states, against the legally expressed will
of that state. He can call this state
rights, or anything else he sees fit. 1t is
4 11,r