Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-11-24
NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

In nothing has the Radical party exhibited
greater malignanoy of spirit or Inconsistency
of action than in the matter of negro suffrage.
In States where its majorities are largest, Its
leaders have insisted upon the adoption OF
the measure, but wherever it has been sub
mitted to vote of the people they have de-
liberately rejected it. And yet these people
are the constituencies of representatives In
Congress whose elections were secured only
because, in many cases, of their earnest adj
Vocacy of an inyestiture of the negro with the
right to vote in the Southern States. Thus
the race who, at the North, have for years
been in the enjoyment of the benefits of the
superior civilization to whose enlightening in
fuences it is there boosted it is subjected, is
deemed wholly unfit to be entrusted with the
power of the ballot; whilst iu-the South, where,
according to the popular theory of Northern
fanatics the same race has been brutalized by
slavery, and all the attributes of manhood.
have been crushed out of it, is found to be the
best and safest depository of the destnies of
sovereign States whose governments have
been committed to its charge. This ineffa-
bic act of meanness has been perpetrated- too
in the face of the most glazing inconsistency
1t will doubtless be remembered that after
the close of the war, among the first acts
passed by Congress, at the instance of Sum-
per, was an act for the establishment of the
Ereedmeu's Bureau-an organization neces-
sary, as it was alleged, for the protection of
Al =. -, H., IL,
rance was constantly exposed. 1t was said
with all the pathos and JUNCTION which
whining hypocrisy knows SO we'll how to en-
ploy, that the freedman was the ward of the
nation, that he was incapable of making
contract fog days labor without the super
vision of the friendly agent his liberators pro-
posed to furnish him; and yet. on the heels
of this legislation, came the monstrous prop
osition, which is now the law, that this igno-
rant, degraded and semi>barbarous creature.
thus confesscdly in need of the good Offices
which the Freedman's" Bureau presupposes,
should have committed to his hands the dell
icate and difficult machinery of human gov
eminent, whose successful operation, through
all time, has been deemed the highest achiev-
ment of the best minds the world has ever
produced.
These mad architects of ruin seem not to
have discovered the truth apparent to all
others, that whilst attempting to infict an ir-
reparable injury on the people of the South
ern States they do not escape the consequences
which they vainly believe they are imposing
on their supposed victims.
They lose sight of the fact that the Sena-
tors and Representatives of the reconstructed
States Of Florida, Alabama, &C., which have
been delivered over to negro rule, are the
equals, in point of power at least, of the
Senators and Representatives of New York,
Ohio and Pennsylvania and that the cleo
toral votes of the former States for President
and Vice President of the United States
count quite as much as an equal number from
the latter. Our only hope of redemption
from this iniquitous scheme is that sooner or
later its authors will discover that what they
intended as punishment of class of the cit
liens OF the country, must by principle of
eternal justice, be shared by themselves.