The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-08-18

so that thousands of them will be qualified
to exercise the elective franchise intelligently
before they become invested with it. If an
educational test is thought to be proper, it
will OF course be equally proper for the white
! people; for ignorance in one class must be
as incompatible with the intelligent exercise
OF the franchise, as in the other. Uniformi-
ty is all that the Constitutional amendment
calls for. l apprehend that an educational
test need take from no man. who has hereto
fore been a voter in the State. the right to
vote; and that it will be sufficient to provide,
that on and after certain date no new cleo
tors shall be admitted to the polls unless
they can read and write. A law to this effect
would be great incentive to improvement
in both whites and blacks. Our politicians,
instead of patronizing the dram shops, in
the prosecution of their electioneering enter
prises, would become schoolmasters and pa
irons of learning, in order to qualify their
friends as voters.
One great obstacle to the admission of ne
groes to the enjoyment of equal laws is the
popular habit of confounding political with
social equality. But the two things are es-
sentially different. Civil and political equali-
| ty are essential to every man, to secure him
in the enjoyment of his equal rights with
Others. They must be guaranteed to him by
| the fundamental Constitution and laws of a
State, and must be enforced, if necessary, by
the magistrate. Social equality is indepen
dent of legislative enactments. 1t could not
be guaranteed by them, and ought not to be
so guaranteed if the thing were possible
There could be no more revolving tyranny
than to compel people of incompatible char
acters, tastes, and habits, to associate with
each other; and no Government in the world
ever attempted anything so absurd. Social
equality implies equal education, refine
ment and virtue in individuals, who are
brought into association by congenial tastes,
mutual loves or friendships, or at least, by
purely voluntary agreement. In the nature
of things, this sort of equality needs not the
sanction of laws nor the authority of the
magistrate to give it effect. Yet the social
laws are very absolute. because, like the laws
of nature, they are self-enforcing. Without
the aid of Sheriff or Police, they are ire
sistible They attract like to like as if by
chemical affinity.
The folly of supposing that political
equality necessarily carries with it social
equality, is made manifest if we consider that
the former exists in all the States of the
Union, between white men in all conditions
of life; while the latter exists nowhere in
the world. except as between individuals OF
mutual tastes. In the city of New York, for
instance, the wealthy democratic" mer-
chants LAWYERS, manufacturers and bankers,
who inhabit marble palaces in Fifth Avenue,
and who are driven about the city by white
servants in livery, have no political rights
which the white driver and ostler do not
possess. Yet no unpleasant social collisions
are the consequences of this political equali-
ty. The hired servants never dream that
they are the social equals of their employers
The democrat of the parlor employs the
democrat of the stable-yard at fair wages,
with a perfect understanding on each side
that there is to be no social equality between
them; and they are, in fact, as far removed
socially, as if the serving man were black
Yet they are equally free to contract, and are
equally bound by the contract. The law
protects the servant as efectually as it does
the employer, because he is equally free in
every respect, has the same right to sue and
be sued; and above all, because he has an
equal share in making the laws, through his
representative in the Legislature. In the
South, also, we witness the same political
equality, between all classes of the white
population, and the same social disparity.
1t is, therefore, idle to apprehend that social
equality with negroes will result from giving
them political rights.
1 am very respectfully,
DANIEL r. GOODLOE.