The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-12-10

Suffrage In the District OF Columbia.
FROM tie Tribune.
One of the disappontments OF last session
was the torpOr of the Senate on the suffrage
bill for the District of Columbia Toe House
early passed a bill to strike the word white out
Of the election laws. This was Judge Kelley's
measure, and having been introduced December
8, 1865, was passed January 10, 1866, by q vote
quite strong enough TO confront an expected
veto. Popular applause followed, as the popu-
Lar will had demanded, this just act In the
Senate, radical members manifested at nrst q
disposition to press the bill to vote. There
could be no doubt that the North req 1ired it,
tor the loyal press was almost unanimous in ITS
approval. Whether the bill could get two.
thirds vote might be doubted, but that 1T could
command majority was not denied. But for
reasons never made known, the benehcent mea'
sure was allowed to languish iTst in committee
for more than a month, and then on the table
of the Senate till the end of the session, without
a vote. Thus did the Republican majority of
the Senate assume responsibility which they
m gut have transferred to the President. We
have lately heard that certain eminent radical
Senators yielded to personal appeals, and that
assumed party necessities in one or two States
came to outweigh both the voice OF the people
upiited in behalf OF this act, and OF the cry of
Justice long Withheld from a prescribed race.
There was also Senate bill which hal been
int o6uce1 ON the first day OF last session, bat
which had Jared no better than the act which
the House sent up. On the first day Of the pre-
sent session Mr.. Sumner tried to call up this
bill AID pass it, but his effort was checkmated
by technical objection. 1t was then under
stood that some bill should be voted on next
week-a bill which the friends of impartial
suffrage had right to suppose would be real
and not a delusive measure. 1t is not pleasant
surprise to learn that the Committee have
changed the bill into one of partial, not i'm
partial suffrage, and that to the qualification
OF manhood is added requisition based on an
artificial standard OF intelligence. 1t provides
NIaaN fhn oil nrAN k., 10 a. H.
stitunon and write his name. As it is known
that a large part of the colored population OF
the District entered it during the war, from
Virginia, the restriction is practically a dis
franchisement of very many of its most loyal
people. The Committee which nteriects this
limitation OF the electoral franchise kno VS. that
il does not fall with equal force upon the two
classes of population, although the distincJ12
Of color is nominally abolished. Here are white
men, to whom schools have always been open,
and black men, to whom il has been forbidden
by law to learn the alphabet.
Until the legal disability has been long enough
removed 10 Tolerate presumption of equal in
tellgcnce based on equal opportunities, they are
not lett on equal terms nor endowed with equal
rights by law which imposes the same literary
and clerical tests upon the two. The law deals
with the franchise radically, establishing basis
of citizenship. It's Jramers or supporters are
bound to know with what elements they are
dealing, but they have assumed condition of
things which does not exist, and constructed
statute which might confer equal rights upon
some district in the moon; but confers very un
equal rights on the actual existing, district Tor
which Congress has to legislate. The business
OF craftsmanship is to adjust principles to facts;
this bill ignores both. We are compelled to say
of it, as Mr.. Bright said of the expected Tory
reform legislation, 1t will not be an honest bill.
We do not believe Mr.. Sumner and Mr. Wade
approve it, they are both on record for an unre-
stricted franchise and for practical, not anciiul
Justice to the blacks. Yet they are both on the
District of Columbia Committee, and are not
before the country as the indorsers of an arbi-
trary intelligence qualification for men in whom
intelligence has very lately been a crime. The
country will desire an explanation OF the action
of the committee before a vote is had, aud Mr.
Sumner or Mr.. Wade will, we are sure, give the
Senate an opportunity to vote on suffrage bill
stripped of the clauses which make Mr.. Morrills
present measure unit TO become q law.