New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-10-08

years, and having certain term of residence
varying in the different States A natural
right exercised under such limitations ceases
to have the aspect of natural right. Or, if
we concede the radical doctrine, it must be
expressed in these TERMS " all persons have a
natural right to vote providing they are of the
masculine gender, are citizens of the United
States, and have resided one year (more or
less) in the State in which they offer to vote )"
which is manifest absurdity
But, still further, the effect of the radical
doctrine of the present day is to prevent the
extension of the right of suffrage. If it is
unjust towards the North that the South should
restrict the right of suffrage to white men,
that injustice must arise from an inequality
in the rule of suffrage as existing in the two
sections. Any departure from that rule, there
fore, which produces inequality, must be
unjust. Thence, one of two consequences
must follow; either no State has right to ex-
tend the suffrage beyond the point of actual
equality with the other States, or if one State
should adopt the principle of extension, all
the rest would be bound to follow in the same
path. For instance, if New York should lower
the standard of age from twenty-one to
twenty, or eighteen, or enfranchise women,
she would disturb the existing equality. She
would, therefore, violate the fundamental law
on which the radical doctrine is based But,
if her right to 50 extend the suffrage be adj
mitted, and we presume no one would seri-
onsly deny it, then she would have the same
cause to complain of injustice towards her on
the part of the other States, that the radicals
now urge against the South. Indeed, on this
theory, the States which first abolished the
property qualification had a right to accuse
those States Of injustice towards them
which had not yet adopted the so-called
universal system and when they come
to constitute a majority, they ought to have
insisted that all the other States should CON
form to the same method. They might even
have excluded from Congress the representa-
tiyes of those States, and made their consent
to uniform rule of suffrage condition pre-
cedent to readmission. The principle is pre-
| cisely the same as that which is urged in the
present case.as a reason for forcing negro suf-
frage on the South The truth is that there
is no safe rule but to leave this whole subject
to the States where it properly belongs, and
the people Of which are alone competent to
deal with it Understandings and nationally.
What the South may do in this matter, at
some future time, it is not for us to decide.
We can only repeat that we believe-and we
believe because our belief is founded on i'm
mutable law-that the natural social forces
of the respective States are fully competent
to settle this question as it ought to be set
tied; and that legislative expedients, de-
vised by extrinsic power, will only embarrass
and perplex it.
In order to show the absurdity of the
fears expressed by the radicals, of Southern
influence in Congress, it is only necessary to
examine the apportionment Of representatives
under the existing law.
According to the law of the Esd of May,
1850, it was enacted that the number of rep
resentatives in Congress should be 233; that
the representative population (Which meant
the whole number of free persons, excluding
Indians not taxed, with the addition of three
ffths of all other personsy determined by the
census of that year and thereafter, should be
divided by said number 238, and that the
quotient so found should be the ratio of rep
resentation for the several States. The ratio
thus ascertained under the census of 1860 was
1914, 1873, and upon this basis the 233 rep
resentatives were .apportioned among the
States. The number was, however. increased
by the act of March 4, 1862, from 233 to 241,
by allowing one additional representative to
each Of the following States, Illinois, Iowa,
Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island and Vermont. According to
this apportionment, the Northern and South
ern States had the following number of Con
gressmen: