The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1866-07-30
The Right of Citizenship.

The Right OF Citizenship.
VOORHEES,, at Vincennes, the other
day, reiterated the statement made by
him in his New Albany speech, that
the Constitutional Amendment con-
ferred upon negroes the right of citi-
zenship, and that citizen had the
right to vote, hold Office, and sit on. ju
ries. There is no man that knows better
than VOORHEES, that national citizen
ship does not confer this right. 1t is
notone of the essential rights ola cit
izen of the United States, to vote and
hold office. Mr.. VOORHEES, is too.
good a lawyer and legislator seriously
to believe any such thing, but it may
suit his purpose to deceive the people
as to the issues of the campaign, and
thereby hope to reach the position for
which he is now so industriously la
boring, the United States Senate.
We will have occasion hereaf-
ter to allude to the false
representations made by Demo
ocratic orators and papers relative to
the Constitutional Amendment. But
we commenced this, article to call the
attention of our readers to the SUBJ
joined extract from the speech made
by Gen. LOGAN to the 10000 soldiers
and citizens Of Salem, Illinois, on the
Fourth of July, Gen. LOGAN is
known to all our people as Democrat.
of the old school, one of the bravest
of our soldiers, and a true patriot
He is not the man to be suspected of
any sickly sentimentality towards the
negro, but like any just man comedies
to him the right to his property, the
right to his wages, protection against
wrong, and the guarantee of the. great
natural rights common to human
beings; and believing that such were
the rights of citizenship conferred by
the Constitutional Amendment, he
ardently favors its adoption He ex-
planned why he, a Douglas Democrat
of 1860, advocated this provision, in
the following emphatic and eloquent
language: i-t r "a 2
Sir, when You ask me how became such
a great advocate of universal citizenship, I
can answer the question. I have had my
prejudices, just as other men in this land,
but when marched with the columns of
loyal men on southern soil, and saw the
flag of treason defiantly Haunted in our
faces; when looked around me and asked
for friends, appealed to the white man in
vain; he was the friend of the traitor, the
sympathizer with rebellion; he owed ale
glance, he thought, TO treason, and not to
the Government of the United States. But
at the deep, dark hour of night, the poor
colored man, bowed down by the chains of
would crawl through the marshes
thicIzets, wade the rivers and come
into our picket lines, into our camps, and
tell you where the rebel forces lay, and how
you might attack treason and destroy it,
[Cheers.l That is the reason why I cared not
when found man that was my friend-a
friend to my country, though his skin was
i
the white traitor. f''That's so.DJ
Hence want him to have the protection
of the law; I am in favor of his having it.
and ever shall be until he gets it. 1 ask
you, my countrymen, ask you. mothers.
who are sitting around in this little group.
that have fond sons that lie away far off
beneath the hot burning sands of Georgia.
whose faces you will see no more ON earth
whose graves you can never visit again.
perhaps, and the old fathers, too, and the
little, prattling babe that often asks his
mother, " Mother, when will my father
again return to me?" to have the laws of
this land so modified, that while traitors
in the South have their gatherings. dav
after day, to strew garlands of flowers upon
the graves of rebel soldiers, that they NAV
live in their memory as long as life shall
last, ifsome poor, old, decrepit negro, who
has gained his liberty by the march and
prowess of American arms, shall come
along with a little basket of flowers to
strew upon the grave of some poor loyal
soldier, that he shall have the right to do
it, and that no person shall have the right
to interfere, and that he is to be protected.
[Emotion.l These rights they ought to
have. We ought to be willing to give them
to every human being on top of Gods
earth. I hope this is not treason-at least
don't believe it is. [Laughter.l 1 believe
it is but doing justice to those people and
to ourselves. 1t is a Christian act on our
part, and we should not fail to perform it.