Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-10-26
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reed and its party record, by asserting
= hat the Republican party In Ohio is op--
posed to negro voting, says:
SBut every man with a preponderance Of
white blood, has been declared "white,"
within the meaning OF the Constitution. by
the Supreme Court of Ohio, and it would,
therefore, be violation of the Constitution
to deprive such a man on his right to vote."
| The Constitution recognizes, no sueb
thing as preponderance of white blood''
in the matter of voting. Its language is !:
Every free sohse male citizen of the
United States" ETC., and hence to deprive
half white negro of his VOTE is'to do just
the thing the Constitution contemplates.
If black or broson is white, then negro is
a tohite citizen, but not otherwise.
The Supreme Court, in one of its deci-
sions. declared that child, with a visible
admixture of African blood in its veins is
a negro child, and hence, under the
law, must attend negro, and not q
white school. Under this decision, if 8
man, who. according to the Journal, having
"preponderence" of white blood in his
veins, is a white man and voter, should
| find white woman So debased as to marry
him, the offspring of such marriage, being
but one-si1teenth African, under the
law, must rank as a negro, although
his father was, as the Journal would say, q
''white negro" and his mother pure white
and must associate with negro children
and so far as social life and that of custom
of society goes. be to all intents and pur-
poses, negro child until it comes of age
and then, according to the Journal, if a
male, 1t would be schie at the age o1
twenty -one years and be voter, but if q
female, according to the decision of the Su.
preme Court, it would be negro all its
life. -
The idea of Court making color-a
white man out of negro-by amere ipse
dirit, is ridiculous in the extreme.
That man is a aobite citizen of the United
States who is of the white race, and no de-
cision of the Court can make the fact 9TH
erwise, or make society believe different.
Take persons of the half blood, male or
female, and educate them to the highest
point--give them intellect far beyond that
of their race, and endow them with all the
being, and no Judge of the Supreme Court,
and no editor of the Journal, would meet
them in social circle as equals-would
tolerate an intimacy between them and
their own families, for the reason that, de-
spite the preponderance of white blood, de-
spite education and exemplary moral con-
duct, they will be ranked and classed as ne
groes, and yet the journal editor, for voting
purposes, proclaims they are white. and en-
titled to the rights of white men, in this, q
White Mans Government. to vote.
In the Journal office the employees are
Republican by large majority. As Re-
publicans they go for negro suffrage and
hold, in theory, but not in practice, that a
half black negro is a white man. Let the
Journal proprietors make the attempt to
put compositor on their paper with even
the slightest s'visible admixture of African
blood" in his veins, and, our word for it,
there would be sstrike" in their estab-
lishment until the white negro was dis
charged. Let such a man make ap-
plication for admission as a mem
ber to the Typographical Union, and let no
one but Republican printers vote, and he
will be summarily rejected. So it is with
Odd Fellow and Masonic Lodges. In these
institutions, where the kindest feeling of
man to man and the most enlarged charity
are taught, the negro, be he ever so white.
finds the portals of a white lodge closed
against him, aud if he wishes to become
Mason or an Odd Fellow, he must take the
degrees with other negroes, in lodges
where white men, in good standing,
never appear. Nay, SO tar does the
Masonic fraternity carry their opposition
to negro masonry, that no Grand
Lodge in the United States has ever given
the, Negro race charter, and perhaps ney-
er will-the charters under which Negro
Lodges work are obtained from source
that Masons in the United States refuse to
acknowledge or affiliate with--branding
the Negroes as bastard Masons, not to be
recognized by the Order. -
How utterly preposterous then, is it, to
attempt, by judicial decision of partisan
G urt, to say that black is aohite and to make
that stand as the law of the land. The AL
mighty has placed stamp upon the ne
gro, that, until completely worked out by
miscegenation, will make the races dis
tinct and separate. And no Court in Ohio
has yet been able to make the peo-
pie believe that it has power to
abrogate the DEGREES of Heaven, by its SIM
pie ipse digit that half blooded negro is a
white man and until it is able to do this
so long will the Constitution of Ohio, which
says that none but ,chite citizens shall have
the right to vote, be held to be the SUI
preme law of the land, and Democrats will
govern themselves accordingly.