Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1867-10-05


part of Gods world than ours did.
/ What reasons do our Democratic friends
give for keeping up this ban of prejudice
against the colored race The real! rea-
son, imagine, is because they have no
hope of getting the darkies to vote with
them. But they tell us negroes are not
intelligent enough to vote. And vet
they do not propose to base voting upon
intelligence. They do not ask to exclude
those who cannot read or write. They
do not ask us to exclude persons who
cannot understand our language, and yet,
with all these terrible disadvantages, it
cannot be said that they are so ignorant
as to be unfit to share with all other men
in the right to govern themselves. Take
off the han of prejudice, give them an
equal chance, and then make the COM
parison.
They say that the negro was enslaved
in his own country; that Africa has
never produced great statesmen, poets or
mechanics Well, if that argument is
good, it ought to apply to families as
we'll as races. Would it be fair to cx-
clude man from high offices because
/ Ills dDSCSIOio idSC LtCu CtuIuIlCS
civilized society, and not one of them
has left name? Our own race has been
cropping its way upward so slowly that
we cannot set ourselves far above other
men, without the same presumption for
which we sneer at the Chinese. All
races are descended from one stock, if we
can believe be Bible, except one Nasby's
All differences are the result of climate
and opportunities of civilization. @
Even if our race is better than the ne
gro race, that is no reason why we should
deprive them of equal rights. 1t is only
another reason why we should give them
an equal chance With US. -.r
And, fellow citizens, there are special
reasons why we should allow the colored
people to vote in Ohio, and why the Re
publican party, which has been the bull
wark of our country during its recent
history, should cheerfully extend this
right. Their exclusion is the remnant of
the barbaric influence of slavery, and
should fall with the rest of the Internal
| system. But for slavery it would never
have existed The word "white" was
inserted in the Constitution of 1902 be-
cause the trainers of that Constitution,
being mostly from slaveholding States,
were anxious to exclude from the State
negroes who were debascd by slavery.
Ohio VINO among the first to exclude ne
groes from the right of suffrage, and this
was soon followed by an infamous code
of black laws. This code was repealed
by general consent, and all that is left of
it is what will be stricken out by this
amendment. AS Ohio, of all the new
States, took the lead i'll wrong, it should
be the first to rctract it. .... ..
We have borne our share in the strug-
giles and sacrifices by which slavery has
been expurgated from our system. In
this great and good work we have tram
pied under foot the social habits and Gus
toms of millions of people. Let us not
rest until we have completed our work
by restoring to the few colored people
among us, his natural right to partici-
pate in his own government And we
must not forget that during the war, the
colored people of Ohio have fairly Won
their right to vote. Long before public
opinion justified the formation Of negro
troops in Ohio, they formed companies
in Ohio and joined Massachusetts regi-
mcnts. Before the war closed more than
their ratable proportion of males entered
the service aud behaved gallantly.
Now, when you are excluding from
the privileges Of manhood the sneaks
who fled to Canada to avoid serving
their country, can we do better than to
put in their stead men who without hope
of office, without any of the honOrs OF
military service, without even the recog-
milton. of the State of their birth, voluu-
tarilv assumed the hazard and danger OF
the strife? Can the body of our people
whose country has been saved from
deadly peril, whose property has been
protected by the heroism OF soldiers, both
white and black can they go with good
heart to the polls when wounded black
soldier looks wistfully, but in vain, to
share the same high privilege of an
American citizen-can we refuse him the
same means of protecting his wife, his
family, his kindred, that we cherish for
ourselves as our most precious legacy? ?
No, fellow citizens, this question is set
tied. When we were drawn to the ne
cessity of employing negro soldiers, we
were bound to give them votes. In the
language of an American General, when
they drop the musket you cannot with
hold from them the ballot.
Again, fellow citizens, decent consls-
tency demands it of us. We have through
your Representatives in Congress, for
high national purposes, prescribed negro
suffrage for the South as one Of the con
ditions of representation. Can we refuse
it at the North?
After the gravest consideration, we
saw no safe basis of reconstruction In the
South except universal suffrage, white
and black. / may speak of our reasons
hereafter, but now we have the simple
fact that we, with the will and power OF
conqueror, engrafted upon the registry
of votes 100000 black men who had re-
Gently been slaves. We did it to secuee
for ourselves and for the whole country,
broader and more loyal basis OF geY-
ernment, and to secure us against future
wars and rebellion.
Shall we now, when the question af-
fects our own registry, refuse to insert
seven thousand men Of the same color,
men who were born among us, who have
always been free, who are far more intel
ligent than the new citizens of the South,
Z 4 TNtrr T.