The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-01-04
CHI ARL Es T o N.
FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 4, 1867.

CHI A r i Els L yin
FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY T. 1867.
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE
The Hon. GARRET DAVIS, United States Senator
for Kentucky, on tho 12th Of December last made
a speech in the Senate on the Bill then Eendng,
n reelate the elective franchise in the District OF
1 Columbia.
The Louisville Courier Of the 29th contains
his remarks in ertenso, covering four closely
printed columns of that large paper. Mr.. DAVIS
1 has not heretofore been considered one OF Inc
champions Of the South, and we hope, therefore,
We shall not be accused of .pandellng to the Sec
tional preiudices of our readers, when we propose
to present them with the gist Of this splendid ora
torical effort.
Mr.. DAVIS deserves considerable credit for
ulacing his protest on record at time like this
for courageously defining his position, even in tho
,ace of the Radical journals, which, he must have
known beforehand, would certainly deride him IN
their usual supercilous manner, for unearthing
what they are pleased to denomlnate "ehete
issues Derision is not argument, nor phlllpplc
logic. even though it has been said, and very
truthfully, ssWho osn refute q sneer 2"
We shall pass by all the pretty things MIR. DAVIS
says in praise of woman: and his deprecation OF
seeing her occupy false position-eGcited by the
remarks Of tho Senator from Pennsylvania, who
had offered, as an amendment to the Bill that the
right Of suffrage be also conferred upon the women
of the District. Both the proposition and Mr.
DAVIS reply being manifest buncombe, we pass on
to the real subject matter in hand the proposlt.on
as he states it, that nation of superior race
should allow an inferior race, resident In large
numbers among them, to take part In their govern
ment, in shaping and controlling their destinies.
This proposition, he says, sis refuted by its mere
statementn and as it is well in all discussions that
| there should be distinct understanding between
the disputants as to the precise sgncation OF the
terms to be used in the argument, MIR. DAVIS pro-
ceeds to give his definition
The race of people referred to by tho term ne
gro" IL well understood, not only BY men OF science
and travellers, but persons OF general reading on
the types Of mankind Ihat term !eompIenend1s 1sa
and especially woolly hair, peculsr formation OF
the cranum face peIvis, shins and iaet, which are
80 distinctly enumerated by ethnologlsts and ma.
turasts acd which they a agree are sse haIGial va
tory OF the negro found him In Africa, occupy.
ine more than one-haf of that large continenl and
mostly within the torrid zone. The whole poPuls-
tion Of Africa approximates one hundred millions,
Of which about SIXTY are OF the negro race.
He then proceeds to state that, for four Thousand
years, the negro has been the same unchanging
specimen of man in his physical intellectual and
moral features and proportions. There has been
the same desttution Of arts letters and civil poll
ty: the same absence Of all civilization, and the
same engulfment in the deepest ignorance and
sayageism,-the tribes and natives making inter-
minable and most cruel wars, and either selling
into slavery or putting to death all their captves
The negro was made lower and weaker than the
other races; he is subordinate 60 them, and has
often been their slave, but never their master; all
the occasional, mesgre and restricted civilization
which he has ever possessed was impaired to him by
them and he could retain it only by their contin-
ued contact and help; and but for their superior
faculties and endowments the whole world OF man.
Kind would now be in prineval and hopeless ignor-
ance and barbarism.
Mr. DAVIS then comes to the history OF slavery
and the slave trade in this and other countries,
and next to tho history Of emancipation. This
commenced, about eighty years ago. IN st. Domln-
go. Then followed the same kind Of emancipa-
ton, by national authority, in the West India
Islands Of England, France, and other European
powers, and lastly in the United States. That
emancipation hiss been failure in far, at least
as relates to the proposed intellectual or moral ad
yancement of the black man, is undeniable. His
deterioration from the time he was slave in oil
of them is palpable; but in St. Domingo it has
been much the greater, because the conserving
Influence of the white man was not there to chock
and reform it.
The honorable Senator from Kentucky then re-
marked that, in the srdor Of his youth, untaught
by lessons Of experience, he also entertained the
prevalent dream Of possible civilization Of the ne
gro race, and enthusiastically aided the cooniza-
tion societies to transfer negroes from this country
to his native home in Africa.
"Bnt,n he continues, "from all that have since
learned Of the negro, and have read Of the efforts
to found the English colony at Sierra Leone and
the American colony at Monroyia and the adjacent
country, and from all the information afforded by
the friends Of those colonies, am satisfied, in my
in any other condition and connection than his
enslavement to the white man. am satisfied that
if the West India colonies Of England, Of Spain,
Of France, where emancipation has become oon-
summate and the colony Of Monrovla and The
British colony of Sierra Leone, were abandoned by
the white man, and none Of his superior intellect,
energy and conserving influence were continued
there, those colonies, now somewhat civilized,
would, in fow years, fall INTO as hopeless and as
ignorant o barbarism as has lowered over Africa
from the beginning Of recorded history"
That the two races are unequal would scarcely
seem to require more than the more statement of
the fact The men of science of every school may
be considered unanimous in their opinion on this
point. PR1oHARp is the only exception. He as-
sumed the opposite theory when college boy of
seventeen years, in writing thesis and this error
ibibed by him in his youth, he devoted the labors
of q long life and great intellect to sustain.
Mr. DAVIS then goes on to say that he believes
ours to be q white mans government; made by
him for himself, without the aid or any reference
to the negro, Indian, or any other race of man.
The preliminary clause in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, the great Shibboleth Of abolition and
radicalism, he says, is o mere abstract statement
of principles and sentiments and never had any
force or obligation Of law. It liberated no slave,
negro OF Indian. .(for there were then both); it
gave no right of suffrage any other right to any
negro or Indian, FREQ or slave, and it left them
precisely as though it had never bcen made
These are historical facts-undenia "Our ma
tional family very properly comprehends all OF the
nationaGties of Europe who may come here; but l
assert that negroes, Indians, Mongolians, Chinese
and Tartars, ought not and cannot safely be ad-
nlitted to the powers and privileges of citizenship
The speaker next adyerted to the innate anti
pathy of different races, hostile in proportion to
the degree of their difference. Anlalgamation, he
says, is the only possible mode of obIteratng this
aversion and this, in the United States, is simply
and utterly impossible. Superior and inferior races
have mingled, it is truo, but then they had held
these relative positions from accidents OF fortune,
and not from any intrinsic chronological difference.