The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-15

was an outpouring advance Of barbarism; a |
confession that education is unnecessary TO
make a voter in a republic. 1t was not states
manship; it was mere pot-house partisanship
of the lowest type--an effort to hold political
power by means of brutal black mob driven
to the polls like cattle. If we are asked for
evidence of this, the proof is everywhere in
the South.
Now, if this subject we're divested of all IFS
partisan relations, no sensible member of the
Republican party, conspicuous for his intelli-
geDce and soundness OF judgment on everyday
affairs, would approve this scheme of at once
making voters out of the uneduoated, unre-
1ecting, thriftless field hand Africans of the
South. Such man sees at once that the
project is totally unlike proposition to edu-
cate and elevate, If possible, the negroes, and
then give to them the elective franchise. There
are oday, in the Loyal League Club in Union
square, many members who vindioate the
Republican contrivance of reconstruction,
and yet, ON the slightest provocation, will
declaim by the hour against the out
TRACE of permitting naturalized Irishmen
and Germans to influence by a vote the affairs
of the city of New York. These Loyal Leaguers
are didactic, argumentative, and verbose
about the danger to our free institutions
from this assumed white ignorance. They stig-
matize Irishmen and Germans as casting ''the
foreign vote" Whatever goes worst of all in
our city affairs they attribute to what they
call the ignorance of this vote. II these Loyal
Leaguers are reminded of the inconsistency of
their political action in the matter they aban-
don at once all inquiry about the relative in
telligence of the two races, and give what
seems to them very logical retort, to the
effect that they never can prescribe man on
account of his color. To all suggestions that it
is not a matter of color, but of intelligence and
fitness to vote, they turn a deaf ear, and bab-
BILE on about "the age of progress and ''the
inalienable rights of man." If asked why they
do not insist by Congressional enactment, that
red men, Indians, shall vote in the new COM
munities of the West, they sputter out some
thing about "COpperheads, and fall into a
tone of ribald abuse.
1t is for the edifcation of such advocates of
immediate, universal African elevation in the
late insurrectionary States, regardless of pre-
liminary education, and we copy from the
Times an extract from O recent letter of its
Tennessee correspondent. He alludes first to
the dongs of the Radical Legislature in respect
to passengers on railways, which up to very
recently have kept separate cars for Africans,
carrying them for three cents per mile, while
white people paid five cents. The Legislature,
under Radical influences, passed a law making
it misdemeanor, punishable with fine and
imprisonment, for any common carrier to
make any discrimination on account of race or
color. The railroads were 'thereupon con-
strained to let the Africans go in any car they
preferred, and to charge them five instead Of
three cents a mile. OF the practical result of
this manhood piece of legislation, the Times
correspondent says:-
"Now, this equal rights theory may be we'll
enough in the Northern States, where the
blacks are few and intelligent, and cleanly in
their habits; but in the South, where they are
lutely filthy, the practical operations of this
theory in this particular are anything but ac-
ceptable; l speak plainIy for nothing but
questions. To ride in cars half filled with wan
dering, worthless, lndolent blacks is not plea
SAINT undertaking. To take a sleeping car and
| find blacks above you and below and all about
lesTs may
They are practical questions here under exist
ing circumstances, and can only be met In this
way. II such things are the legitimate result
| OF impal tial suffrage or universal suffrage, we
not know that they are. 1 do not think it
would be, If our legislators were possessed of
| not such results as sensible, intelligent blacks
| desire. but they are results which will GER
tainly follow If this siprit of innovation is not
From this subject which is one of social in
| convenience, the correspondent passes to
| another radical scheme which involves prac-
| tical destruction of the system of jury trials.
| Writing of a bill to make jurors of Africans,
be says
1.-THE latter bill is now before the Legislature,
| and will probably pass. The bill is not to admit
all blacks, but on ly such as are qualified voters.
| II has the same obnoxious political qualiflca.
| tions as the jury law now in force-a law which
| has been more mischievous and more corrupt
| ing than any law ever enacted. IL has degraded
| the judicial proceedings of the State; it has
| filled the jury. box with partisans, and has
made the trial by jury Ia many counties in
East Tennessee farce II has provoked the
| most serious apprehenslons, and there is
scarcely alawyer of any practice In this section
| of the State-I care not what his political pro-
| cl1ViCes may be-WhO is not thoroughly per
suaded that it has done incalculable harm to
| the Interests of itigantS. One after another
| these Innovations come. There Is scarcely O
law In any respect political in its nature that
| has not been tampered with since the war. The
most venerable customs and the most vital
interests of the people and the dearest rights OF
the citizen, however secure by prescription or
by plight ed faith, have been Invaded by pas
sionate, hasty, and ill-considered legislation.
The examples have given will show The spirit
l. OF the present Legislature and the dangers TO
| be apprehended. Every careful observer must
notice these things What Will come nexC?"
In the Convention now in session in Ala
bama to make State Constitution is to be
seen, in full play, the elevation of uneducated
Africans. A pure blooded African, planta-
tion hand, named Strother, is a member OF
the Committee on Taxation and Finance
Another African, Finley, who can scarcely
read or write, is member of the Committee
on Education and the School Fund Diggs,
another African who, on the registration OF
members, was compelled to make his mark,
being unable to write, is member of the Com
mittee on Amendments to the Constitution
And Alexander, the African who insisted upon
crying out "here, when called to vote for one
of two persons by count is member of the
Committee on County and Monicifal Organi-
zation.
natural elimination of the action of such
1 koc1 r,,1o tv,4 81