Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-02-13
NorA nENE TO cUFrEE.

The Radical organ says mat whenever
the colored voters of Tennessee vote with
the anti-negro- emancipation, anti-negro-
testimony and anti-negro. suffrage Conserya-
the party, we will advocate their disfran-
chisement as strongly as we now do their
Acknowledgement, for the very same reason
that we advocate the Acknowledgement Of
lunatics."
With many, it is matter Of doubt
whether the negroes, as a class, are ca
Fable Of exercising the suffrage right in
telligendy; very great many, indeed
large majority of those best calculated,
from their knowledge Of the negro, to
give an opinion do not think he is the
number that really believe him to have
the necessary qualifications is very small
"a handful Of crack Drained theorists
merely. These unhealthy times, however,
have bred party which by force, fraud
and accident have acquired temporary
power in this State, that pretends to be-
Iieye it, and which for the aggrandize-
ment of its selfish ends proposes to con-
fer the right upon him
The above extract from one of the
mouth pieces Of this party, is, however,
notification to the negro that there Is
restriction upon his newly acquired priv
lege. No matter what his grade Of in
telligence may be, be is to have no indie
pendence in the matter II he sees fit to
vote any other way than his Radical
guides may direct they have mentally
reserved the right to remand him to the
condition of a non-yoter lie is judged,
under sueh circumstances to have shown
himself no better than a white man of
admitted intelligence, who refuses to vote
at their dictation He is held for pros
scription rs soon as he worries under the
Radical collar He is accounted the nat
uralized thrall Of the Radical party As
a voter he is a Radical serC Relractori,
ness is to be regarded as evidence Of
lunacy, and under that pretext, new
constitutional provision" enacted by
Legislature, is to make Samho himself
again. Oh yes, whenever the colored
voter Of Tennessee fails to fulfill the Oh
iect of the political mountebanks who
have enfranchised him, it will be imme-
diately discovered that he cannot live,
politically or socially as the equal Of
the white Radical If the negro wants
to retain his right tovote, let him be care
full not to 90 crazy enough to vote as he
pleases.
This government was founded on the
idea that the people were capable Of adj
ministering it through the medium Of the
ballot.box. An element of that idea,
however was that each vote should be
the reflex of an intelligent and indepen-
dent opinion. No one supposed that all
the votes would be of this class, but, ifthe
men who projected it had ever imagined
that a time would come when majority
of them would not be, they would never
have yentured on the experiment They
well knew that the system could not stand
on ignorance, seryility, and corruption "a
basis. Yet this is the experiment to
which the Radicals are attempting to sub
iect the Southern States. Intelligence is
being excluded from the voting franchise,
and ignorance admitted, on the express
condition that it will prove servile, and
foster the corruption in which it acquired
the right TO be so.