Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-05-23
THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION IN TEN
NESSEE.


an act, in the nature Of a constitutional
amendment, to limit the elective fran
ehise. BY this act, following immediate
Nv upon the heels of the surrender of the
Confederates, portion of those engaged
in the unsuccessful effort to throw Oft the
authority of the Federal government were
DISTINGUISHED There was scarcely
Radical at that day, from Brownlow up
or down, who would tolerate the idea of
comforting suffrage upon the negroes. 1t
was difficult to induce them to give the
colored people the right to testify in the
courts, and it was not until nearly year
after the war closed before this measure
of Justice was accorded to them The
Just rights of the negro met with the
sternest opposition from those who have
since become the worst Radicals, the
members from the mountain districts OF
East Tennessee So bitter was this hos
tility that Gen. Fisk, then in charge of
freedmen's, affairs here, and who was
laboring zealously for their protection,
wrote
at is a melancholy fact that among the
Jitteea opponents Of the negro an Tennessee,
are he intensely Radical IOyaiistS Of the
mountain districts-the men rho hare been IN
our army"
Gen. Fisk understood fully the senti-
ment of the Legislature at that time, and
he testifes to the Radical feeling upon
the subject of the negro The sole quss-
ton of difference throughout the first
session of the Legislature was as to the
enfranchisement of Rebels The Act
of that session was felt to be disgrace to
the statute book, by the very men who
passed it II was manifest and afro
cious injustice aud early in the next
session, October, 1865, MIR Trimble Of
fered bill to do away with ito allow
all white men to vote, and comforting a
restricted suffrage upon the negro.
While admitting all Rebels " to the bal
lot, it restricted the negro vote to those
who were free prior to February 22,
1865, and those who served in the Fed
eral army, with the additional qualifca~
.tion Of the power to read and write.
This was the first movement to give
the right Of suffrage to the negro in Ten
nessee; and to commend it to general
acceptance, it was coupled with the en-
reimbursement Of Rebels" Mr. Trim
bic regarded it as a grand step in adj
vance, and tried to conciliate the known
hostility Of his Radical friends to it, by
asserting that under its provisions not
more than one thousand negroes out Of
nearly three hundred thousand in the
State, would enjoy the rights Of the
ballot The rest, he said, were not to
come in until after ten long years of
probation and education.
In the meantime the fact had become
apparent that the BrOwnlow Fletcher
dynasty was not secure under the fran
chise act of 1865 The high-handed act
Of tyrannical usurpatiOn of Brownlow,
in silencing the voice Of thousands of
freemen, by rejecting the returns in
large number of the counties in the August
elections of 1865, had aroused the people
to a sense of their insecurity. 1t was
plain that one act Of despotic usur
patton of the rights of free people
necessitated others, and they were not
slow to perform them Trimble's bill was
first secuted as an unjustifable encroach-
ment on the superior and exclusive rights
of the white man, and then it was spurned
as the best means of turning over the
State government to the "Rebels for
with the few white. Radicals and only one
thousand colored votes, the Brownlow
rule wruld go down, world without end
The question was now with them
" How can We retain power-and save
our credit by being true to republican
government A new shuttle and deal
Of the franchise was indispensable. A
special committee was raised on the sub
iect of the franchise, which reported
through Mr. Arnell a new bill on the sub
ject, still more stringent than that Of
June, 1865. 1t excluded negroes and
" Rebels alike, and made the State a
close corporation for the benefit of a few
"A little squirming oligarchy-a mere
political junta-that Fletchero or Brownlow
could carry around in his breechespocket
This was So mdicrously absurd that
Arnell, in reporting it, repudiatsd IT, He
had another scheme which would solve
the question, and that was universal suf
frage aud on the oath of January, 1860,
he introduced into the House the follow.
ing bill-which he declared embodied his
views upon the subject
Mr.. ARNFLLs UNIVERSAL, SUFFRAGE
BILL.
o. ID. - L. IL ~ L