The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-09-04
southern Democracy.


We take the following extract from
the proceedings of the Texas Constitu-
tioual Convention of July 10Th last, as
reported in the Austin Republican O.
the next day. II is the fairest and the
frankest illustration of what the Demo
Gratis mean by a "white mans Govern
ment" we have ever seen. The Conven'
ton was considering report on "gen-
ernl provisions"
Mr.. Long of Freestone offered tho fol-
lowing substitute for section Z.
That no person shall be eligible to
the ufIice OF Governor OF Lieut.. Gov
eruOr, Commissioner of General Land
Office, Treasurer, Comptroller, Score.
less such person shall have owned TWEEN.
ty slaves, and that any such person Of
fering as candidate for any OF the
above Offices shall not be less
than IhIrLy years of age, and
have resided ~ the Slate at least MIrty
years next presiding his election, ana
that no election shall be he held In this
State for any Office except for that OF
Governor, provided that no person Of
African or Dutch descent shall be ctIgi-
Die to UOte at any election in this State /;
aud provided that the Governor shall
have the right 10 appoint all the OH
GERS oGIhis State, and the officers so
elected shall possess the same quAlih'
cations As the Governor.
In the first place II will be seen no
person was to be eligible TO the princi-
pal offices of the State unless he owned
tVcnty slaves.
In the next place no person of for
eign birth. nor indeed any person
Whatever, unless he had been in the
State thirty years, should be eligible.
There Is Know-N othtnglsm tor you.
In the next place, nobody at all, ma
tive or foreign, should have any voice
In the election OF any officer except
Governor, in whom all the powers OF
the people in this behalf should be
vesled-Ihus making him the autocrat
of the State.
And finally no person of either Afri.
can or German descent was to have
vote even for Governor, no matter If
he had lived in the State thirty years.
The reader will perceive that the At
rican and German were to be put on
the same Iootiug-both to be dIsfran-
ohised. In Texas the Germans are aud
were during the war, thoroughly loyal
to the United States; and that, in the
eyes of a Texas Democrat, Is a crime to
be punished by Acknowledgement. We
fnd therefore, that Southern Democra-
Cyl just as ready to prescribe and dis
franchise white man as black one,
II he is loyal to the Government. five
will but recall some of the declarations
that used to be promulged by the slave
holding oligarchy, when they were
ruling this country rom their cotton
throne before the rebellion, we shall
ind this no new proposition. They
were agreed that all labor, white or
black, skilled or unskilled, untitled
men for participation in the govern
ment. Their theory was thatthey, who
never earned an honest dollar or added
one dime by their own production to
the wealth OF tho world, should be the
ruling class; that they, having capital,
should ot0a the labor that the laborInS
men, both black and white, were, in
the choice phrase of Senator Chestnut
OF South Carolina, "the mudsills of
society" and in South Carolina their
theories were so fully carried out that
white men who did not belong to their
class las well as the black) were denied
political rights.
We happen to have before us an ar,i-
Gle from the Charleston Merc1.y, print.
ed in those ante. bellum days, when the
slave-holding oligarchy was ruling with
a rod of iron not alone the South but the
whole government, and was demand.
Ing that its great Western domain, in.
stead OF being sacredly preserved, free
soil, to make homes for the oppressed
and exiled children of the Old World.
should be blackened and blasted by
thin> labor cursing Institution, to the