Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-08
0bio Statesman.
from the Urbana Union.l
I" VISIBLE ADMiXTURE LAW

from the Urbana Unionl
/" VISIBLE ADMiXTURE LAW
CLOSING ARGUMENT OF
HENRY r. NILES, ESQ.
I'm Defence of the ConslItutionaIity
of this Law, Made in the District
Court al Urbana, May 20, 1865
I'm the Case of Collins VS.. Mon.
roe ct al Reserved from Greene
County, Before Judges welsh.
Smith, Gilmore, Winans, COrwin
and NHcKemy.
May it please yovr Homors:
The wits and satirists of English lit
erature have sought to bring the Ban
and the Bench into contempts by charg
ing the Bar with making "the worse ap
pear the better reason" and confoundine
the fundamental distinctions between
right and wrong, at the same time
charging the Bench with aiding them
by refined subtleties to defeat the ends
of Justice in her sacred name.
Yet these wits and satirists have al
ways placed it beyond the power of tn.
acutest judge and the most artfnl advo
cate to confound entirely the fundament
al distinctions between right and wrong
light and darkness and black and acAite
and the honor was reserved for the Su
preme Court of Ohio to make the dis
covery that these distinctions were mere
delusions of the vulgar, and that the
people of Ohio, when they used the word
white in defining the qualifications of al
elector, in their fundamental law, did not
use it in its popular sense in which ii
means white as distinguished from col
ored" but in its illegal sense" in which
it does not involve question of 'color'
at all, but "a question of BLOOD" and as
a question of blood it means not aohite
but Tess than half black blood. .
Van Camp VS.. Board of Education Of
Logan County o. s. .4O6. and Ander.
son VS.. Millikin o. S. 56S, and cases
there referred to.
The limits of suffrage should always
be plain and easily ascertained for the
manifest reason that the right to vote
must be determined by ordinary men in
multitudes of cases on election day, but
by this construction of the word aohite
the well-known class of colored people is
divided in the middle, so that if negro
blood preponderates, or the scales are
balanced the person is excluded, while
if white blood preponderates
sin the substance
o. the division of the etwentieth part
Of one poor scruple nay if the scale do turn,
But in the estimation Of single hair"
the person becomes in. the meaning OF
the people of Ohio aohite citizen of the
United States, and as such entitled to his
vote.
This construction is rendered still
more astonishing by the fact that while
the people whose meaning is sought in
the constitution, are divided on the ques
tion of negro suffrage, large majority
holding that suffrage is high trust
safest in the hands of the wAite man.
and minority regarding it right that
belongs to all; there is not, and never
was in the State a single person of any
party in favor of dividing the colored
population as this construction divides
it nto two classes, giving suffrage to the
one and Withholding it from the other
thus doing violence to the sentiments
of all.
TO render it still more absurd and i'm
possible of execution, the court in these
same decisions has taken from the
judges of election the only palpable and
accessible evidence by holding that it is
a question of blood, which can only be
determined by pedigree, and not a ques-
tion of color which could be determined
by inspection, SO that they are required
to take the vote OF person having fifty
one per cent. of white blood, however
black, and reject it if he has but fifty
per cent. however aohite
The practical result of this rule has
been what might be expected.
In communities opposed to negro suf:
frage all have been practically excluded,
while in communities in favor of it, ne
groes born in Africa and black as night
have voted without hindrance.
This was the evil the Legislature
sought to remedy by the "Visible Ad-
mixture Law" so-called, now before
the court, vol. 65 p. 81.
The right to challenge has always ,ex-
listed and been recognized. S. & G. 545,
(s2) sec. xiii; SAG, (s3) sec. xiv; 546,
(SO sec. xviii.
A person being challenged must prove
his right. This is required by these
two well known rules of law:
1. He who claims contested right
must prove it, no person being required
to prove negative.
2. A party having evidence peculiarly
within his knowledge must produce it.
In the absence of legislation person
challenged as disqualified by African
blood by both of these rules is required
to prove preponderence of white blood,
as foreign-born voter is required to
prove naturalization.
How does he do it? Precisely as in
court of justice.
Color, as test, is excluded by the
Supreme Court, and there is no mode of
chemical analysis by which preponder-
ance can be proved, and even if there
was, voter might object to undergoing
the process of Phlebotomy on election
day.
The only mode left is to trace the pa
rentage until more than half the blood is
traced to white ancestry.
In tracing pedigree marriage is a
most important fact, for two reasons
First, because when the mother is mar
ried the law comes in with a presump-
tom which is conclusive against all evil
dence but impossibility-that all her
children born during marriage are the
children of her husband; second, because
on marriage and the family relations