Weekly Trinity journal. [volume] (Weaverville, Calif.) 1857-1972, 1868-12-26
from the Oakland Transcript]
The Philosophy Of Universal Suffrage.

The Philosophy Of Universal Suffrage,
We have before referred to the disgraceful
black clause in the State constitutions of Califor
MIA and Oregon Our own organic law says that
oplv every ,chte male citizen of twenty-one years
and upwards, may be voter; that of Oregon
declares that none but white people may reside
in the State! This is absolutely barbarous and
diseraceful to the intelligence and moral per-
ceptions of the people of the Pacific coast.
The doctrine of universal suffrage is in accord
with the soundest political economy, and every
one who is unable to view the proposition in
that light is still in some degree overcome by
the blindness of an irrational prejudice. There
are great many good people who go too slow
for the accelerating march of events. They set
out with a measured tread, and for while keep
tolerably we'll up with the rear-end of the cara
van but, ere they are aware, the double-quick
word of command is given in front the stan
dard disappears behind the forward hills the
bugle-cali dies out in the distance and when
night oyertakes them on the lonely plain, the
beacon-torches are below the horizon and they
are left alone, still stepping with measured pre-
cision, and losing ground at every stride.
The views of universal suffrage and of full and
complete freedom which we would now advance,
are by no means original with ourselves, or new
to political economists and enlightened essaysts.
More than forty years ago, in essay on Milton,
published in the Edin6urg ReuieV, Macauly wrote
as follows:
"There is but one cure for the evils which
newly acquired freedom produces-and that cure
is freedom. When prisoner leaves his cell, he
cannot bear the light of day he is unable to
discriminate colors recognize faces. But the
remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon
but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The
blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and
bewilder nations which have become half blind
in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on,
and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few
years men learn to reason. The extreme vio-
lence of opinion subsidies. Hostile theories cor
rect each other. The scattered elements of
truth cease to conflict and begin to coalesce
and at length system of justice and order is
educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of
our time are in the habit of laying it down as a
set-syident proposition that no people ought to
be free until they fit to use their freedom
The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story
who resolved not to 60 about the water till he
had learned to swim"
With an archetype so illustrous, and with the
established proposition that full and complete
freedom necessarily involves the right of suf-
frage, it may appear like redundancy of labor
and an excess of presumption to prolong ar
gument which is already sufficiently elaborate
and complete.
1t must be clear enough to any susceptible un-
derstanding that a republic where, in the first
nature of things, call men are created free and
equal, " there can continue to exist no privileged
class and no politically inferior order Of men,
Otherwise, the system is republic at all, but
an aristocratical government under the admins
tration OF many tyrants and constituting the
very worst sort of despotism. This proposition
was accepted as an established truth by the cell
ebrated authors of the Federalist, in which it was
asserted by Mr. Madison that " whenever Ameri-
can slavery shall have been abolished by law,
10 sol will ha INN H.
tied to the right of suffrage" So indisputable
did that proposition appear to his enlightened
contemporaries and co-laboring essaysts, that
Mr.. Madison's declaration was not cOntroverted
by any of them in the Federalist or elsewhere.
So obvious did it seem to themselves that in the
very nature of republicanism, there could be I'M
der that system no political ruling class nor one
unpriviledged and subservient; and they easily
perceived that slavery consisted not only in the
compulsory obligation to labor without reward,
but also in the despotc denial of natural rights.
That being so, slavery is now only half abolished
in the United States the antecedent condition
has been done away with, but the other remains
in full force; American citizens are now being
born free from involuntary servitude, but not
free to exercise their natural rights, and not
politically equal with others born under the
same laws Of nature and country.
For some time yet, an enlightening press will
not be able to extirpate the barbarous prejudice
OF Color winch Is peculiar 10 tne people Oh Tue
United States, and which has been assiduOusly
cultivated by the save-breeders and man-steal-
ers. But, as in every other relation, the fixed
laws of nature bringing about an adaptable
ity of the public press suited to the progressive
condition of the popular mind, and the old jour
nalistic clogs and membranes having had
their day, and refusing to be correspondingly
enlightened, will be without occupation. The
new race will tear down the pendant cob-webs oe
prejudice, fling open the sky-lights, and let in
upon the public mipd the friendly and brighten
ing rays which the others have been so industri-
Gus in excluding Then it will become generally
known to the people that in all the histories of
great nations, ours alone excepted it does not
appear that black tawny skin, or crisp
hair, or a gobue of African blood ever OBJ
structed its possessor in his pursuit of military
renown, in his ascent to civil distinction
then they may learn something of ancient Afri-
can civilization, and of the strange people, least
understood, who inhabited that territory OF
lordly rivers, of lofty cataracts, and so imperial
in it's natural history.