Litchfield enquirer., 1869-03-18


 transformed the savage Angle and Saxon the fierce Vandal, Goth and Frank, int, the polished and enlightened European O 1 the modern centuries.
 I1- Tho negro tribes on the other hand, re mained separated,by vast and almost i'm passable deserts from the ancient civilize, world. The Christian missionary failed t reach them. Centuries rolled away with ont change in their utter isolation. till shortly before the discovery of America 1 the reports of the Portuguese navigator ldrew the attention of Europe to the abo rigines of Africa. Then for the first time a representative of Christianity and civili l zation visited them, but in far differen guise than when, thousand years before l the hearts of the northern barbariang wer, subdued to the Cross. It came to tn wild African nations, bring no loving mes sage of light and redemption, but mad it's revelation from the deck of the slave ship. It tore it's victims from their blazins homes, and dragged them to inhospltablt ocean shores; it loaded then with letters branded them with hot irons, lashed then with knotted whips, thrust them between the acursed decks of the slayer, and bore them away into the fiery torment of the middle passage. It landed them in 8 strange country, amid strange race, and let them with such admonitions as these ''Henceforth you are to cease to be men, and to become brutes. Your domestic re latiOns are to be those of the beasts of the field. Every avenue of knowledge shall be closed against you. Develop your muscles strengthen your sinews, but forget that 70, have moral and intellectual nature. Chris tian civilization requires that you should be q laboring animal, and the nearer you approach the submissiveress and stupidity of the OK, the better you are adapted to it's purposes. And lest in the heart of the victim there should be some aspiration, some struggle after light and liberty, the rock of the slave code was placed upon his head, to crush him down into hopeless an imalism forever. Tor three hundred years this process has been going on, upon the American continent and it's adjacent is lands, and now we taunt the negro because he has never established civilized state Has civilization, has Christianity, deal fairly with him? Is.
 If an immigration of the recently -eman. cipated Russian serfs were now to begin and half million of them of all ages anc sexes were annually to be landed upon oul continent, all wise men would rejoice al the accession to our laboring population and no one would be bold enough to pro pose change in the law of naturalization which would permanetly exclude the new corners from the suffrage. We should fee satisfied that the influence of free institu. tions, the universal opportunities for edu cation, the vast preponderance of fthe old inhabitants of this Republic, already ac customed to self government, would grad. ually and safely absorb the new materia into the mass of society, and the nation b, richer and stronger for the addition. Wh, can we not be wise enough to reason il the same manner concerning our own serf< It is impossible to answer this question without discovering that an unreasonine prejudice lies at the bottom of the oppo sition to the extension of the suffrage. Its existence Is easily accounted for. The negro was brought to this country as slave. Our laws have been carefully fram ed to keep him ignorant, servile, and de graded. We have grown up, associating him in idea with contemptuous nick. name. When. we hear him mentioned, that nickname rises to our thoughts, bring ing with it the image of creature un. .couth, clothed in patches, filthy, speaking in ludicrous dialect; in word, of crea ture of whom we and our laws have been the creators. It does not occur to us how all this might be changed by simply giving to him the place, the rights, the duties, the inward consciousness of full citizenship Instead of putting before him such objects as would exalt his nature aud dignify his manhood, we have systematically shut him out from all ennobling aspirations, and then made the result of our injustice the apology for continuing to be unjust
 j4 And yet, in spite of these adverse iniu ences, the colored population of this coun- try is fully as advanced Tn civilization as the agricultural laboring population of any other country on earth. The light which shines from our American charters, still more, the splendors which emanate from the sacred Word, have pierced even the darkness which enveloped the cabins oi the slaves, and the spiritual and intellec tual nature of man has asserted itself in their development. Since the war, their progress in this direction has been unpar- alleled in the history of mankind. Their thirst for knowledge, their eager pursuit ot education, their willing labors and sacrif ces to obtain that precious boon, are testi fled to even by their enemies who burn their school-houses over their heads. .a,1' & q But we are urged to wait until the negro is still more educated, and thereby better fitted for the political duties of citizenship. It is the old appeal of the privileged class es the world over As if any man, white or black, could ever be taught to swim by being kept sprawling upon the shore. In such system as ours. theve is no educa. tion in political duties so swift and thor ough as the position of the right to partic ipate in those duties. There is no so sure way to perpetuate ignorance of them as Dthe exclusion from such participation. In a country where the widest extension ol the suffrage is the rule, if you maintain an exception marked by an ineradicable dis tinction, you doom the excepted class to hopeless dishonor; you take away from them all the strongest motives which stim- ,ulate masses of men to exertion, and you foster every ignoble passion which can ren- der them useless or dangerous to society.
 Our argument is ended. We have no doubt of the result of the. struggle which is now going on. In three years, the mum. Der of States in which the negro is voter on the same terms with the white man has increased from five to eighteen. The rev. olution will not turn backward. To record it's consumation in the Constitution of the Republic is the crowning works of our gen. eration. Then ih very deed, will the or ganic law establish justice, insure domes- tic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and