Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-04-24
The Stupidity Qualification.

/ Tt would be an interesting question to
/ solve. just how little il is necessary to
know in order to make an eligible
/ Democratic voter.
Tne Democracy make a pretense OF
/ DISTINGUISHING ffthe nigper'' because he
don't know enough to vote. The real
reason 1Or disfranchising him, however,
4 lies in the fact that he knows too much
/ to E0fe- -Lllg k4sl17eansst5e tIeAzet-- II -the
cOloFed people can be kept out Of the
| schools long enough to make Demo-
craLs out of them, they will be Pufran-
/ chised en- HldSSe. Here we discover rea-
/ son in what would otherwise seem in
explica BILE. It has always been a source
/ of wonder that the Democracy, while
claiming that the cOlOred person is too
/ ignorant to exercise the rights of cibi-
zensbip, should exert themselves to
| keep him in ignorance by excluding
/ him from all facilities for bettering his
education. 1t is now clear. They want
TO make him Ignorant enough to vote
the Democratic ticket. The negro mind
in its natural state is not dense enough
Tor this. Il requires q schooling in ig-
norance, so to speak, cumulative force
/ of stupidity, gathered from generations
of aosolute mental inactivity and i'm
becility.
That rare old philosopher, Dom Piatt
made this discovery some time since,
and announced it in the profound apo
thegm.-tThe Democratic party is the
organized ignorance of the country"
And Dom has been there. The mar
vellous light of tie Republican gospel
found HIM there, and knocked the
scales from his eyes going up to a State
Convention, and he became one of the
apostles. He is a real Old Hickory
brand plucked from the burning.
Petroleum v. Nasby, another sage,
says, t'The Dimocrade party is founded
onto the stink Of a nigger." The ex-
ole fc FrrHT ~,F
force.
Dom is right, and 50 is Nasby. And
our Democratic legislature has return
ed to fundamental principles in legisIa-
ting the colored children out Of the
schools supported in part by the taxes
of their father BY a singularly skill
ful and felicitous effort, they have COM
bined the ignorance and the odOr in one
bill.
But the College student-that most
anti-D Democratic institution-is more
difficult to dispose of. He can't be ex-
cluded from the schools, and there is
no hope of his ever being capaciated for
voting he Democratic ticket. Even il
ne could be excluded, and they were
TO commence on him now, there would
be enough education inherited by de-
scent to prevent his children from vO-
ting the Democratic ticket in twentE
generations. Nothing remains to be
done in his case but TO totally disfran-
chise him.
If any man shall so far forget the
reverence due the stupidity Of his Dem
ocratic ancestors as to go to College, let
him be cut off, even as the house oi
Ahab. Let it be made penitentiary
offense for him to know more than this
Democratic Legislature.
The placing Of our Columbus school
system under restricted Democratic
control would be a motion of decided
al n avTa1 11f ia n
such half way measures must be pro-
nounced puerile by the philosOphic OBJ
server. It is but limited in its opera
ton, however efficient in promoting ig-
nOrance in this Immediate locality.
What the Democratic party needs is
some grand comprehensive system of
breeding ignorance which shall be
adaptable TO the wants of the entire
State-sOms system which shall bear
especially lard upon the Western Re
serve districts.
Besides, with a fatuiby which cannot
be too strongly condemned, they have
entirely overlooked the Sunday School,
that nursery of Black Republicanism
and woe. The Democratic party can
never feel secure until Sunday Schools
are abolished.
The whole matter might be concisely
put and tfEectually accomplished by IA
Jaw that no teacher of schools shall be
allowed TO vote or hold office in this
State, forever; { at any parent or
guardian sending "a child or children to
school shall be required to give bond
that such child or children shall never
become a public hrebrand to bring the
Democratic party into cOntempti that
nobody in Ohio shall read anything but
the Sta sesuan or some other mental So
pOrific that no one capable of reading
the Constitution of the state of Ohio or
of the United States shall be permitted
to vote and another law that any per-
son voting other than the Democratic
ticket shall be punished by imprison-
meut in the Ohio Legislature not less
than ninety DAYS nor more than two
years.-C Columbus Journal.
rho Miobi-rnndnrs havinr Defeated