The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1867-02-09
The Right of Suffrage.

INK IS "a SNAAEgkC
We are of those who believe that our
Government is a White Mans Govern
ment; that it was made by him for him
self, without the aid of, or any especial
reference to the. negro, the Indian, or
any other race of man and that all this
is morally and instrinsieally right.
The population of the United States
consists of well-defned classes; and ifthe
great mass of any of these classes are es-
sentially and palpably incapable of self
government-both individually and col
l%ectively incompetent-they ought un-
questionably to be excluded from suffrage;
because they could give no assistance to
proper and Legitimate government, and if
their numbers were relatively large, they
might aid materially to obstruet, confuse
and prevent it. None will deny that
idiots and ~lunaties are classes OF our pop
ulation that come within the reason of
this objection, and Mat they ought, as
classes, to be excluded from suffrage
True, there might be many cases of par
tial lunacy, where the subject would be
more capable ola rational and proper ex-
ercise ofsuffrage than many men of more
limited but sounder minds. But the in
convenience, difficulty and impossibility
of a~seertaining, in each individual case,
the extent of mental infrmity that would
make it proper for the particular object
to be excluded, require the exclusion of
the whole class.
So with the negro population. We do
not deny-we have never denied that
there may be some negroes possessed of
more intelligence, more virtue, more Of
all that qualify a man for the proper ex-
ereise of the elective franchise, than some
white men on whom that right is confer
red. We admit this is occasionally true,
particularly as regards those negroes who
have a goodly quantity of white blood
coursing through their veins. But as a
class ne hold that they are unfit for self
government; and especially are they un-
qualified TO make laws to govern the white
a The black skin of the negro, his
woody and kinky hair, the peculiar forma-
ton of his Uranium. face, pelvis, skin and
feet, which are so distinctly enumerated
by ethnologists and nqturalists, are all the
natural marks of an inferior race. Four
thousand years ago, and during all the in
tervening ages, he was and has been the
same unchanging specimen of man in his
physical, intellectual and moral features
and properties; the same restitution of
arts, architecture, letters, and civil polity;
the same absence of all civilization, and
the anne profound engulfment in the
deepest ignorance and savagism the
tribes and nations making interminable
and most cruel wars, and either sell
ing into slavery or putting to death all
their captives. The negro was made low
er and weaker than the other races; he
Is subordinate to them and has often
been their slave, bit never their master i;
all the occasional, meager and restricted
civilization he has ever possessed was i'm
parted to him BY them and he could and
can retain it only by their continued con-
tact and help; and but for their superior
faculties and endowments, the whole world
of mankind would now be in primeyal
and hopeless ignorance and barbarism.
But, say our Radical z~ealots, all you
say may be true-but it is unjust to the
negro to exclude him from a participation
in governmental affairs. From the CEN
sus of 1860 we learn that the white fe-
male population of the United States ez-
ceeded thirteen millions, and the aggre-
gate negro population, of both sexes, was
below four and a half millions. That
great white population, and all its female
predecessors, have never exercised the
right of suffrage. If it be urged that it
is wrong to refuse to let the negro vote,
We claim that it is wrong not to let these
thirteen million white women exercise the
right of franchise. In intelligence, in
xirtae, in everything that qualities one to
bea voter, tLey are as far superior to ne
groes as negroes are to the bahoou or
ring-tailed monkey.
Our position on this subject is simply
this: The right to participate in govern
mental afairsis an inherent, ~lnalienable,
aatural right, belonging to ali classes of
men upon the globe. But, like all other
rights, it is subject to various and sundry
Limitations and restrictions. 1t should be
exercised only BY those who are oompe-
tent, and are residing n their own eoun-