The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-04-21
From the ST. Louis Dispatch.J
Negro suGrage-The Meaning Of its
Condem nation

Negro SunraRe-The meaning OIL It's
Condemnation
The more the question of negro suf.
frage has been discussed-the more
the thought of the nation has been con-
centrated on 1.-THE more general and
emphatic has been the verdict against
it. We even venture the assertion that
the clearer the national conscience, the
more enlightened the national intellect
becomes-and the higher the national
aspiration grows, the smaller the
chances will he, of the incorporation of
that idea with the national polity.
Those who say that it is sure to prevail
in the end are therefore in error. On
the contrary the few States that now
permit the few negro citizens within
their limits to vote, will probably de-
prive them Of that privilege. The ques-
tiOn of negro suffrage is not an ordlna-
ry political question. The solution of
it is governed less, after all, by the in
telleCt than by the primitive instincts
of race. The people of the United
States are the lords and masters of an
immense territory, and the destined in
heritors and rulers of the whole conti-
nent, by virtue sf their natural superb
ority to amalgamated populations.
Had we not preserved the purity and
Integrity of our race, We should have
never established our ascendancy. We
should even now forfeit that ascendan-
cy should we corrupt our blood by inter-
marrying with either the black, red or
yellow race. By this last we mean the
Chinese Coolies, who will in a brief
period crowd the whole Pacific slope
and overflow into the great basin, and
doubtless identify themselves with the
other polygamOus hordes-European
negades-establishe in that region.
The children of Spain and France iden-
titled themselves with the red and black
races within the tropics on this conti-
nent, and what has been the result
Their dominion has pasesd away for
ever. An Indian rules once more i'll
Mexico, and Hayti belongs to Africa and
barbarism.
If the negro he permitted to vote, the
Coolie must also be granted the same
privilege. The one thing is a logical
sequence of tho other, and if the princi-
pie is to be extended to the inhabitants
of Mexico when we annex that country,
rs it will be necessarily if we enfran-
chise the negro, we shall have (thrOugh
the divisions of parties) the representa-
tives of barbarous and heathen races
legislating for and governing
the Republic. We shall have Po-
lygamy, Idolatry, and African
Fetishism recognized by law as
our great predecessor Rome gave sane
tuary in her temples to the gods of the
nations, which she conquered. We may
see the Chinese Josh and the African
Jumbo in other places than the muse
ums and the Patent Office. The intel
lect of the country protests against
mixed government of this kind, how
ever far III the future it may seem to be.
The instinct of the country, which, after
all, is the Instinct of self-preservati0n,
protests against the incorporation of
inferior elements in the body polite.
The capacity to rule is not iDalienabIe.
1t cannot be always perpetuated, wheth
or by pure descent or wise institutions.
Under the most favorable circumstances,
we shall have enough to do to preserve
and perpetuate Republican institutions
in this country. But If we allow the
Negro and CoOlie and the Mexican
Greaser to take the handling of such
delicate machines we may be sure that
disorder and anarchy will follow, and
that tie military despotism, which
NAV come in any case, and come very
soon, will universally be desired as the
one panacea for the disorders of coun-
try that nothing could affect iDjuriously
It'll from itself it fell"
There is a presentiment that negro
suffrage and its corollaries, the eleva-
ton of negroes to Office included, is the
preliminary to fusion of races; and
conviction that fusion Of races must
be followed by universal degeneracy
and an inability to maintain the form
of Government under which we have
attained unprecedented happiness, and
considering our age as natiOn-un-
precedented greatness. This sentiment
is profnuuder than the Radical philos-
ophers suppose. Indeed they will soon
learn ic they have not yet done so, that
it is much stronger than any mere po-
litical passion or idea, and will burst
asunder or hopelessly enfeeble the Rad
ical organization. We repeat that it be-
longs not to the sphere of the under
standing but to the basis OF the charac-
ter, and is entirely unaffected by the
authority of the stock maXims, such as
that "all men are born equal;" and that
" taxation without representation is
tyranny"-maxims which, like all other
political truths, are narrowly limited il
their application by circumstances.
We repeat, then, that the question of
negro suffrage is not political one, in
the ordinary acceptatiOn of the word,
though the Radicals have foolishly
made it such; and that the moreit is
canvassed the less favor will it receive.
Since il has arisen into National prom
iRence as a party question, every State
that voted on it voted in the negative,
and by continually increasing majori-
ties, as each State brought it in success
sion to the test. The late result in Ohio
and Michigan, compared with the negro
suffrage articles in the constitutions of
Massachusetts,, Rhode Island and New
York, prove that it is not merely a
waning but an utterly lost cause.
The editor of the Janesville, Illinois,
Gazette, writes this about man whose