The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1866-10-27
The Constitutional Amendment and
80 s Negro. Suffrage. tel 9b d

RA4 as ftAt NEGRO OturdS5s ts'- tfa1 -
The editor of the Journal, whoever he is, Is
very sorely vexed about negro suffrage. 1t ia
pitiable to see his feeble attempts to excite the
q people ON the subject, Having no truth on hil
side, he is given to the most glazing falsehoode
and the basest Misrepresentation. He takes
up q new position only to lose it. The people
= read the desperate rawlings of his pen, and
smile. Although he spoke of the upper end OF
the county, some time since, as a /" barren dis
s'trict," the peoples heads are not so |" barren
as to be deceived by such shallow bosh rs lie
wont to appear in the Journal.
- A few weeks ago he tried to make the people
believe that the Civil Rights bill made the ne
gro voter. We nailed that lie and then he
took up the second section of the constitutional
Amendment proposed by Congress and attempt
ed to argue negro suffrage into that. Driven
from this position, in last weeks paper he
makes the same attempt with the first section.
This section reads thus: g
siss" All persons born or naturalzed in the Uni
ted States ami subject to the jurisdiction there
y of, are citizens of the United states and OF the
J. State wherein they reside. No State shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the pri-
vileges or immunities of citizens Of the United
States, nor shall any State deprive any person
+ of life, liberty or property without due process
~ of law; nor deny to any person within its jul
risdieton the equal protection of the laws
. Then follows the Journals uery logical train
ssof argument, thus 3" Who are citizens? White
and black. What is one of the immunities Of
=" citizen2 Voting, Of course. Consequently,
if the Constitutional Amendment be adopted
"by the requisite numoer of States, it will be
"out of their power to prevent the negro from
"voting."
Now read the following:
Chancellor Kent, the author of work on
American Law which is studied by every law
student in the country before he is admitted to
the bar, and an authority that even the Journal
dare not question, says !" The privilege Of 10
ting and the legal capacity for holding office, are
mot essential to the character Of citizen, for
"scomen are citizens without either. Citizens,
"under our Constitution and laws mean free
Inhabitants, born within the United States, or
"naturalized under the laws of Congress. # a
"sIaue be manumitted or a black man be6ornyfr fret
"within the United States, he becomes thencefor-
.acard citizen, but under such disabilities as
"the laws of the States respectively may deem
sit expedient to prescribe to free persons Of
"color."
e. Another authority t
Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General
of the United States under Mr.. Lincoln, and a
strong supporter of Johnson, in 1852 rendered
"a decision which has been the policy of the
Government ever SINCE in which he said: "No
"error can be graver than the argument that
"the right to vote is one of the Constitutional
elements of American citizenship. Neither
-" infancy, nor madness, nor crime, can take
s"away from the subject the quality of acitizen,
"and our laws do, in express terms, declsre
"women and children to be citizens; and as the
"privilege of voting or holding Office is not es-
ESSENTIAL to citizenship, SO the deprivation oft
"by law is not deprivation of citizenship
" No more so in the case Of a negro than, IN the
"case of a t0Omaas o. child. No person in the
United States ever did exercise the right Of
"suffrage by virtue Of the naked, unassisted
q fact of citizenship"
So that it appears, from these high authori.
ties, that free negroes, born in this country,
have always been citizens Of the United States,
yet none, by virtue of their mere citizenship,
ever voted. In the view of these eminent ju-
rists, the very essence of the above section il
already in tho Constitution of the United States
in spite of the Journals vain effort to deceive
the people into the belief thatwhen man is a
citizen he necessarily votes.
- But the Constitution itself settles the matter
beyond the possibility of doubt. In the first
article and second section thereof occurs this
clause: No person shall be Representative
"who shall not have attained the age of ttocnty-
O. fue gears, and been seven gears citizen Of the
- United States"
That is: By the Constitution of the United
States man is citizen before he is twenty
one years of age, yet we all know that no one
can vote until he reaches that age. Hence the
Journals statement that voting is one of the
privileges of citizenship, is false, unqualitSeal,
false
Now, what will the editor of that paper do
in this matter7 Will he attempt to argue the
matter against the authorities we have quoted,
or will he, as an honest man should do, ac-
knowledge that he has been trying to deceive
the, people, and make amends for the crime by
telling his readers the truth next week
We shall see.
The Amendment not a Radical Mea-