Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-06-03
Not in Favor of Negro Suffrage.


From the recent discussion in the
House Of Representatives on the admis'
sion of the Southern States into the Union,
we extract the remarks of Hon. MIR.
BECK, of Kentucky They will go to
show that negro suffrage is not the pre-
vailing sentiment of the people of Ken-
lucky and of the great North. West:
Mr.. Highby-I wanted to ask the gen.
tleman what he would do with the negro?
Mr.. Beck will tell the gentleman
what | would do with the negro. | would
protect him as free man, as | would
protect our women and children, or any
other person who had not the capacity
for exercising political rights. would
hold the negro unfit for political rights.
A., we do the Indian and the Chinaman,
for a great variety of reasons. His whole
race has. shown itself in all time unfit for
selfgovernment. The Caucasian race
alone has developed that power, and that
only under favorable circumstances, by
the growth of centuries aud by education
up 10 point which We think we have
reached Many of the races even upon
the continent of Europe and Asia are YET
unfit for selt:government. And to say
that thenegro, inferior all time past, shall
be taken from the rice, cotton and sugar
plantations of the South, in absolute ig
norance, degraded, as the Republicans al
ways claimed, to the level of the mule
he drove-to take him from that condi
ton, and place him above his former
master, degrade, debasc and disfranchise
the white man, and put above him man
who has not an idea what to do except to
follow the bidding of the demagogue who
seeks to use him-to do this is an outrage
upon the white race to which we belong.
and one which the people of this country
never will permit.
would protect the negro in all his
rights, but would hold him unfit to ex-
ercise political rights. will go as far to
protect him in his civil rights as any gen
tlelnan from New England will go. And
the men of my State, as much as they
have been slandered upon that subject,
will and do go as far in protecting and
defending him as. any set of men in
America. If gentlemen will 60 there
now, they will see the negro as happy
and better protected and better cared for
than in any other State, North or South,
in spite of all the efforts of demagogues
to make it otherwise.
Mr.. Ward-Will the gentleman yield
to me for question?
Mr.. Beck-I cannot yield further.
When Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas and
Ohio refused to give the negroes any po.
litical rights, how can gentlemen repre-
senting those States now seek to fasten
that policy upon the people of the South ?
Having made the experiment under
the most auspicious circumstances and
''ir'v tested it in the free States-I mean
AZ States where men were free to act
and to decide--and yourfeown people
having everywhere discarded your at,
tempt to establish negro suffrage, with
all the inducements and temptations you
could mold out to them, it does seem to
me that as faithful representatives Of the
people, whose will you know and whose.
instructions you have received, after a
full and fair submission of the question
TO them by yourselves, you have no
right to place the white men of the South
under the domination of the negro-no
right to use the coerced and ignorant ne
gro vote in the South to neutralize the
free, intelligent vote of the Northern and
Western States, for this is really not
vote, but an indirect and efficient mode
of stiffling the ballot-boxe of the North,
as fragrant, when fairly looked at. as bur-
ming up all the ballot-boxes in the States
OF New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana
would be. These three great States hav.
ing about the same electoral votes as the
five military districts in the South, would
it not be more manly, equally just, and
present your claims more intelligently,
if you would allow the ten States en-
braced in those districts to remain, as the
distinguished gentleman from Pennsylva-
MIA Mr.. Stevens says they now are,
waste, outlying provinces, conquered ter
ritories, till after the November election,
and send your bureau agents or other
suitable emissaries into the States of
New York, Pennsylvania and Indiana,
on the first Tuesday in November next,
and in. the presence of all the people
thereof, burn up the ballot.boxes and
ballots, on the claim that you have
right to deprive the Democratic candi-
date for the Presidency of that number
of votes, to set off the political power of
these territorial dependencies, which you
claim to own and control by right of con-
quest The people would understand
that tissue and have something to say
about it; yet that is precisely what you
:lre doing now in.an- indirect way, and
the people are. beginning to open their
eyes to the truth-of it. a
know this Congress thinks it is omnipo.
tent. 1t is nearly so. 1t has acted rs though
it was, in spite of the decision of the highest
ldical tribunal in the land q tribunal
made coordinate I'M power and authority
with Congress by, the Constitution; tribu-
nal erected as a barrier against legislative
usurpation on the rights of the States
and the people; a tribunal whose exposi.
tion of the Constitution has always been
deemed to be binding and conclusive oaalll l
eaE