The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-01-04
CHI Ar L E S TON

CHI A r L E S T ON.
N" .Mr --~-<->---- .".s#
FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 4, 1867.
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.
The Hon. GARREr DAVIS, United States Senator
for Kentucky, on the 18th Of December last made
speech In the Senate on tho Bill then rending,
to regulate the elective franchise in the District Of
Columbia. 0M.. ..1.oM.
The Louisville Courier Of the Goth contains
his remarks in eztenso, covering four closely
printed columns Of that large paper. Mr.. DAVIS
has not heretofore been considered one of the
champions Of the South, and We hope, therefore,
we shall not be accused Of sepandering to the sec
tional prejudices Of our readers" when propose
to present them with tho gist Of this splendid ora
torical effort.
Mr.. DAVIS deserves considerable credit for
placing his protest on record at time like this
for courageously defining his position, in the
face Of tho Radical Journals, which, he must have
known beforehand, would certainly deride him in
their usual superciious manner, for unearthing
what they pleased to denomnate sseffete
issues" Derisiou is not argument nor philppio
logic, even though it has been said, and very
tuthfully, 'sWho can refute sneer2"
We shall pass by Ill the pretty things Mr.. DAVIS
seeing her occupy false position -eiicited by the
remarks Of the Senator from Ponnsylvania, who
had offered, as an amendment to the BIZ, that the
right Of suffrage be also conferred upon the women
Of the District Both the proposition and Mr..
DAv1s reply being manifest buncombe we pass on
to the real subject matter in hand the proposition
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
statement; and it Is well in all discussions that
there should be distinct understanding betwe an
the dsputants as to the precise Specification Of the
terms to be used in the argument, Mr. DAVIS pro
ceeds to give his ssdefnition:"
The race Of people referred to by the term enc
gro" is well understood, not only by Of science
and travellers, but persons Of general reading on
Black Skin but not as an exclusive distinction; also
and especially woC1ly hair, peculiar formation Of
the Uranium, face, pevis, shns and feet which are
turalists AID which they all agree are the natural
marks Of en- inferior race The hrst recorded his
tory Of the negro found him in Africa, occupy
mostly within the torrid zone. The whole popula-
ofwhich about sixty are Of the negro race.
He then proceeds to state that, for four Thousand
years, the negro has been the same unchanging
moral features and proportions. There has been
the same destituton OF arts letters and civil poll
ty; the same absence Of all civilization, and the
same engu1fment in the deepest ignorance and
savaEeism,-th tribes and natives making inter-
minable and most cruel wars, and either selling
into slavery putting to death all their captives
The negro WAS made lower and weaker than the
other races; he is subordinate to them, and has
often been their slave, but never their master; all
the occasional, meagre, and restricted civilization
which he has possessed was impaired to him by
them, and he could retain it only by their contiu-
ued contact and help; and but for their superior
faculties and endowments the whole world OF man
kind would now be in primeval and hopeless ienor-
ance and barbarism.
Mr. DAVIS then comes to the history Of slavery
and the slave trade in this and other countries,
and next to the history Of emancipation. This
commenced, about eighty years ago, in st. Domin-
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 has been failure, in so far at least
relates to the proposed intellectual or moral ad
vancement Of the black man, is undeniable His
deterioration from the time he was slave in al
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 check
and reform it.
The honorable Senator from Kentucky then re-
marked that, in the ardor Of his youth untaueht
by lessons Of experience, he also entertained the
prevalent dream OF possible civilization Of the ne
gro race and enthusiastically aided the coloniza-
tion societies to transfer negroes from this country
to his native home in Africa.
.Bnt," he continues, s.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 Aonrovia and the adjacent
country, and from all the information afforded bv
the friends Of those colonies, am satisfied in nv
own mind that negro civilization can never e1ist
enelavement to the white man. am satisfied that
Il the West India colonies Of England, Of Spain.
OF France, where emancipation has become con.
British colony Of Sierra Leone, were abandoned bv
the white man, and none Of his superior intelleck
energy and conserving influence were continued
would, in few years, fall into as hopeless and a.
ignorant barbarian as has lowered over Africa
Hom the beginning Of recorded history" -"
That the two races are unequal would scarcely
seem to require more than the mere statement Of
the fact. The men Of science Of every school may
be considered unanimous in their opinion on this
point. Pa1cHARD is the only exception, He as
sumed the opposite theory when college boy Of
seventeen years, in writing thesis, and this error
imbibed by him in his youth he devoted tho labors
OF long life and great intellect to sustain.
Mr.. DAVIS then goes on to say that he believes
ours to be 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-
pendanoe, the great shibboleth Of abolition and
radicahsrn, he says, is mere abstract statement
Of principles and sentiments, and never had any
force or obligation Of law. It liberated no alaye.
negro or Indian .(for there were then both): it
gave no right Of suffrage OF any other right to any
negro or Indian, free or slave, and it left them
precisely as though it had never been made.
These are historical facts -undeniable. ssOrr ms
tionA family very properly comprehends all OF the
nationalities Of Europe who may come here; but
assert that negroes, Indians, Mongolans, Chinese
and Tartars, ought not and cannot safely be ad-
tted to the powers and privileges Of citizenship"
The speaker next adverted to the innate anti
psthJ q different races, hostile in proportion to
the degree Of their difference. Amalgamation. he
says is the only possible mode Of obhteratine this
aversion, and this, in the United states is pinauly
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
The helot and his Spartan mastar, the Saxon carl