Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-04-12

rights Of negroes, and held, in emphatic
language, that their civil rights should
be precisely those of other people with
no separate and discriminating codes
or regulations. M
Many Of the legislators of Georgia had
sought his advice upon the subject of a
black code of laws, designating diff.
ferent, and in many instances severer
punishment for negroes committing GER
tain crimes, than that applied to whites
such as hanging for rape, while the
penitentiary only was given the white
mau guilty of similar offense He op-
posed any discrimination in defining
crime or devising penalty. That Legis-
lature finally legalized negro testimony
in cases affecting their own race TIhiss ii;ss
proposition he phlosophically submitted
to his body servant, an intelligent negro,
and Cuffy was highly elated to think they
had been given superior advantages over
their white friends, claiming very natu-
rally that the negroes were not permitted
to tell the truth except where one of their
own race was interested With Cuffy's
logic Mr.. Stephens went back to the Leg
islature, and in a week new, just and
practical law was enacted, admitting the
testimony of all persons, regardless of
color, leaving, of course, the credibility
Of the testimony to be adjudged by the
court And Mr.. Stephens successfully
urged upon his people the necessity Of
legalizing the negroes in the enjoyment
Of all civil rights possessed by other per-
sons. #rt
On the all-absorbing subject of suffrage
Mr.. Stephens holds that under our sys-
tenn Of government, each State has re-
served the right to declare who shall
exercise the elective franchise; and he
does not recognize suffrage as a right
pertaining to citizenship, but granted
privilege. Congress, therefore, has no
authority to confer it upon any class of
persons, and should not force so odious
measure upon the South, Ultimately,
when the negro shall have become intel
ligent and frugal, and Incorporated, by
his possession Of real estate, into the
body-politic of the various States, he
thinks all of them will, if from no other
motive, from that of interest, grant the
privilege of suffrage to the blacks He
elaborately unfolded to me some of his
peculiar ideas in regard to suffrage and
representation, and proposes plan
which he thinks would intercept the ne
cessity of, and absolutely prohibit the
formation of, large and corrupt political
organizations. Following up the politi-
cal reasoning of the ancient sdrant,
Aristotle, he would divide society into
numerous classes, representing every
profession, trade, and interest There
should then be basis Of intelligence to
start from, and each interest of the stu
dio-law, morals, religion, mercantile,
mechanical. agricultural, all-should be
represented according to its ralio of ad-
herents and wealth He would restrict
the suffrage of the lower ignorant, and
debased strata of society, TO check what
excesses and mischief the indiscriminate
franchise of the rabble might induce. He
thinks Congress wrong in continuing this
eternal intermeddling with the reserved
rights of the sovereign people of the
States, and fears it may lead to unhappy
results. The Radicals are not the friends
of the negro, and the Northern people
are, as they always have been, wholly
with the negro character
The ostracism of the Southern people
by the Radicals is exceedingly reprehen-
sible. They should let alone the pop
ulace of the States recognized by the
President as in the Union and in perfect
peace. The tendency is to consolidate
power, and such fusion will terminate in
a despotism, which he would avoid by
the non-intervention, by Congress, with
the laws and domestic institutions of the
States