The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-11-19
In the Direction of Peace.

1t is rumored that the President
elect favors an amendment Of the
Constitution, making suffrage uni
versal throughout the United States.
We do not doubt it. General Grant
is a practical man, and believes in
going straight to the root of a diff
Guilty. LET us have peace is his
motto; and to have peace on the
vexed question of suffrage, it is nee
essary to sponge out of our system
Of government every thing that has
the taint of caste about it. If the
people want to get the negro out of
politics, the easiest, the plainest,
and the most direct mode Of doing
it is to put all men of all races upon
the same civi. and political footing,
so far as Government is concerned.
Supposing there were any thing
in the Constitution that gave any
one religious belief especial recogni-
tion-we do not mean constitutional
protection or preference for par
ticular sect, but only recognition of
a creed; such, for instance, as
would apparently put the Jew, or
the Unitarian, or any unbelievers in
the doctrine of the Trinity, outside
the Constitution-how long would
it be before we should have politi-
co-religious strife and dissension? !?
the most prolific breeder of civil
wars the world has ever known
Our comparative freedom from all
agitation of that sort is assured to
us only by the absolute impartiality
or silence of the Constitution re.
specting creeds and sects. Religion,
in sectarian sense, is kept out of
politics by virtue of a constitution
that has no preferences, creates no
inequalities, and protects every man
in the freedom of his conscience
and his own method of worship.
An amendment that would abolish
all distinctions founded upon race
and color, make the franchise equal,
and protect all alike in it's exercise,
would act like charm upon the
troubled sea of politics. and calm an
agitation that otherwise promises to
be of indefinite duration.
We have no apprehensions Of
trouble from the operation of such
a principle. There might be for a
time individual cases Of resistance,
but gradually as the people come to
discover that it no more involved
social equality as a necessity, than
the emancipation of the slaves in-
volved the destruction Of white Ia
boz at the North by reason Of com
petition, they would acquiesce in it
and, finally, resist any attempt to
abridge its operation.
Charles Sumner never made a
statement containing a sounder
philosophy than when he said there
can be no conflict of races where
there is no denial of rights. That
is the root of the whole matter. 1t
is the denial of rights to which men
feel themselves to be justly entitled
that creates disafection, dissension,
and not unfrequently violence and
bloodshed- 1t is because peace lies
in the direction of a broad recogni-
ton Of the political rights of all the
citizens of the United States, ire
spective of race. that we are of the
opinion that proposition to make
suffrage universal will receive the
sanction and support of President
Grant. 1t is doctrine that is
soundly Democratic, and, therefore,
likely to form part of his political
creed, and it will be the great re-
membered fact of his administration,
if accomplished, as the eradicator of
slavery from American soil will be
the grand historic fact of Mr.. Lin.
coins terms of office. -C;nn. Com
11ercSnI