Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1868-05-21
Tnr,. Inf.mous copperhesd Laws.

Senator-elect Thurman has drafted q
bill, which the Copperhead majority OF
the Ohio Legislature is expected to pass,
ito prohibit the Supreme Court from
considering cases out of their order."-
The object of the bill is 10. prevent three
infamous acts which that Infamous Leg
islature has passed from getting before
the Supreme Court of Ohio previous to
next fall's election to test their constitu-
tionality, us they well know that those
acts will not stand judicial scrutiny for
q moment. The first of those laws is
the "Visible Admixture" act, which dis
franchises. every dark-complexioned
white man who cannot prove that he is
of pure European descent. It matters
not If his grandmother was an octoroon
and his grandfathera pure white, he is
disfranchised, though he may have been
a legal voter since the admission of Ohio
into the Union. A man is also disfran-
chised If he cannot prove that he was
born i'm lawful wedlock. This new Cop
perhead law presumes that every such
man is O negro. If IL be inforced good
many Democrats will find themselves
suddenly stripped of the elective fran
chise. Men Of less than alfnegro blood
have been voters in Ohio for thirty odd
years, by q decision of a Democratic
bench Of Supreme Judges, This Cop
undertakes to nullify the decision of the
highest court in the State as to who may
vote under the Constitution of Ohio.
The second act in question disfran-
chises all the students and professors of
all the colleges, seminaries and acade-
mics in Ohio, which has created tre-
mendous indignation in every school of
learning in the Buckeye State. 1t has
been rule in Ohio always that students
who were single men were legal voters
in the precinct where the college Is To-
Gated II they are citizens Of the State
| But, as four-fifths of the young men who
are seeking an education are opposed to
copperheadism, rebeldom, Pendleton and
repudiatioa, the Copperheads of the Ohio
| Legislature, who happen to be in a ma
| jority for the first time in fourteen years,
have passed an act DISTINGUISHING those
young men, unless they leave school and
travel back to the places where they
previously resided, and stay there for a
certain length of time before the elec-
ton. 1t Is calculated by the trainers OF
this villainous act that it will deprive
six to eight thousand young men of their
suffrage, and weaken the vote for Gen.
Grant to nearly that extent. But the
scoundrels have overreached themselves
and damaged theirown bad cause. These
young men thus degraded all have friends
and relatives who sympathize with them
and will resent the wrong and indignity
and help to punish the authors. Every
young man in the State possessing O
spark kofmanhoodor or decency will espOuse
the cause of the disfarnchised students
and thousands of votes will be lost to tho
Copperhesds for committing this dasard.
ly deed.
The third in the list of acts of persecu
tion for opinion sake caps the climax o
villainy. 1t disfranchises all the worr
and wounded, battered and bruised, leg
; less and armless veterans in the Soldiers
Home in Dayton! This cruel outrage
was perpetrated for the purpose ofsecur
ing the election to Congress next fall-o
whom does the reader suppose? o
Clement H.. VdLidndighant, the traitor
and REBEL There are 400 wounded sol
diers thus DISTINGUISHED and prevented
from recording their adherence of th'
traitor Vallandigham. 1t is Pendleton
body-guard which has enacted thos,
measures. Is it safe to entrust the gov
ernment of country in the hands o
ignorant, vicious, despotic brutes lik'
the Copperheads of the Ohio Legisla
ture? What decent honest mans lber
, ties are safe, ifrulfians of that description
are allowed to make laws? The peopl
mourn when the wicked rule.-L LChicaS
Tribune.