The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1869-02-09
From the Worlds Correspondent
The Suffrage Question.
WAsHINGTON, Febrnar,

. The Suffrage Question. r.
WASHINGTON, February 4.
The suffrage question has come into 0
mixed state before the body which has
it now under consideration. The House,
in its unre6ecting and headlong speed
rushed through an amendment, which
was to have secured entirely equal
rights to every trooly loil man born or
to be born, reciting simply that the
right to vote and hold office should
never be abridged or denied by any
State or by the United States to any
man on account of race, color or prevl-
ous condition of servitude; by which
every negro was at once voter and
every ex.rebel disfranchised forever.
When this flaming generality was re-
ported to the Senate, Stewart, of Neva-
da, became its godfather, and since
then has SO 0'characteristically forced IT,
in season and ont of season, that his col
leagues, suspecting something wrong IN
it because he supported it-a suspicion
always well-founded-have looked into
it, and found, it as insufficient and
svoidable as could be wished by the
stoutest Conservative The result IS q
crude brood of other grand constitu-
tional amendments which quite over
shadow the bantling of the House.
These amendments are legion, but the
principal ones are as follows: By Sena-
tor Buckalew, that the Hare-Mill sys-
tenn of cumulative voting obtain; by
Senator Howard, that negroes be given
the same political rights as plain peo-
pie; by Senator Williams, that the Con-
gress have power to revise, alter, or
amend all State legal or constitutional
laws on the question Of suffrage; and by
Senator Morton, that no distinction be
made on account Of race, color, former
seryitude, or present ignorance orpover-
ty. He wants, too, an affirmative decla-
ration in the amendment, not a mere
prohibition. Any of these new amend
ments would have received mere votes
to-day than the first callow conditions
of Stewart. The course of the argu-
ments has revealed these facts: That
Massachusetts, imposes an educational
qualification; that Rhode Island dis
franchises q third of her citizens by a
property qualification; that eighteen
States prohibit colored people from vot
ing; that Of the nineteen who permit
them eleven have been compelled to do
it by act Of Congress, and wait only full
admission to the Union to regulate the
suffrage on a white basis again. 1t is
seen that the first amendment can be
lodged by imposing property qualifi'
cations, educational qualifications,
or by declaring negroes incapable
by natural inferiority, for the bal
lot. 1t is admitted in Congress
that, if Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Ken
lucky, Maryland, Illinois and Michigan
are compelled to discontinue color as a
bar, they stand ready TO require of every
negro 81 ,O00,0 600 freehold and ability to
read the Greek Testament as conditions
precedent to the ballet, and that all the
Southern States will do tho same thing
when once their affairs are in their own
hands. The Pacific Coast members, too,
oppose the present amendment because
it will turn loose as voters 100000 Chi
nese pagans and bird-nest eaters in Cal
ifornia and Oregon. Hence they want
Senator Williams proposition adopted.
to let Congress give out the ballot by
law to such as it wills. Morton,
Sherman, TrUmbull, and Fessenden
oppose this, however, on the singular
ground that it is destructive to the
State rights; and Mr.. Trumbull favors
Mr.. DiXon's plan to submit the whole
proposition to State conventions, be-
cause to put it through the Legislatures
would be to obtain n snap.jndgment,
which would he followed next year by a
score of reCisions. The carpet baggers
support the present course because its
operation will degrade all the States to
the level of the States they miSrepresent;
but not pending proposition can OBJ
tain n majority, let alone a two thirds
vote, in the Senate. Into this mixed
condition no element has yet entered
which promises harmonious solution.
Some want a repeal of all restrictions;
some want impartial restrictions; some
want uniform State laws on the whole
question:; and some want all State DOW
er in the premises taken away and that
Congress bc enabled to enact what laws
it pleases, by which all the negroes in
Kentucky may vote, no negro in Ohio
NAV vote, and no poor person in Rhode
Island may vote, as well as no Chinaman
or candle-eater of Alaska. In such "A
conditi on of discord, the prospect is
that only endless discussion Will ensue,
and if the matter is pressed it will
crowd off all other legislation, while, if
any other legislation is attended to, it
will crowd off the suffrage business.
The argument is pressed that something
must be agreed to quickly, becasse the
Kansas Legislature adjourns on the 18th
and that of Nevada on the lst instant;
and because if no amendment be hurri-
caned through this spring, and if any
body has chance to vote on it, then
the whole game is up.