The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-24
THURSDAY, JUNE 81, 1859.
POLITICAL Us. SOCIAL EQUALITY

a sryrFIongNr number of States have ratified
the proposed constitutional amendment to
secure it's speedy adoption, and the period is
near at hand when no man can be debarred
from the right of suffrage, in any portion of
the Union, on account of race or color. The
negroes will therefore acquire all the politi-
cal privileges now possessed by white men in
the North as well as the South, and before the
law all men will stand free and equal.
While the nation is prepared to accept this
conclusion as the logical result of prolonged
agitation, the social relations of the various
races will continue to be beyond the reach of
law, and to be subject only to the affinities
and repulsions of individuals.
The old standard Democratic argument
against justice to the freedmen was embodied
in the stereotyped question, 'Do you want
your daughter to marry niger ?" and the
changes were rung in thousand ways on the
idea that political equality was necessarily
accompanied by social equality, and a COM
plete removal of all barriers of every descrip-
ton between the men who were associated
together once year at election poll.
Nothing is palmer than that the enjoyment
of the right of suffrage by all white men has
not led to any such results. Though any
given body of men may cordially associate
together for a specific political purpose, they
agree to disagree on all other subjects,
and to be totally Independent and untram-
melled in their social, business, and religious
affiliations. No white man presumes to marry
another white mans daughter, or even to visit
his house, for the reason that he votes the
same ticket or acts with the same party. Such
pretensions would be ridiculous. And nothing
is more common than for social friends to be
partisan antagonists, or for the men who act
in harmony as co-religionists, or as members
of lodge or of a trades union, to differ
widely in their political action.
Notwithstanding the clear distinctions be-
tween social and political equality, we regret
to notice that the efforts to confound them
are not exclusively confined to the Democratic
party. From time to time attempts are made
by ultra friends of the negro, or by ambitious
negroes, to bolster up the theory that colored
men gain title to social privileges by virtue
of their newly acquired political rights.
Nothing could be more preposterous. Every
white man must take his chances in the battle
of life without such aid, and it is folly to
claim that recent Legislation has placed the
negro on better footing than his white
neighbor
Thousands of white men are continually
tabooed by circles into which they desire to
enter. They may be blackballed by lodge,
denied admission into church, or excluded
from fashionable "set, " for good bad, OF
Indifferent reasons, founded mainly on the
fact that somebody in the association with
which they wish to unite objects to their COM
panionship; but after this rejection they
would be stupid blockheads to complain that
it infringes their rights as citizens and voters.
We expect and desire that the ballot will aid
the negroes to become more intelligent, more
Industrious, and more useful men. 1t will
help them, as it has helped the masses of
white men, to resist insidious Legislation di-
rected against themselves to promote the
education of their children and to break
down artificial barriers to their advancement
But their fate must depend, like that of all
other classes, mainly upon their own exer-
tions and their individual characters. And we
cannot but think that it would be better for
their race if those who are put forward as its
ornaments, on account of their superior intel
iectual or professional requirements, should
seek further distinction rather in efforts to
improve the masses of the colored men than
in spasmodic struggles for recognition by as
sociations of white men which do not
desire their companionship. The young
Douglass, who is printer, might render
quite as good service in teaching young
colored lads to be printers as by his efforts
to become member of a typographical asso-
citation which is composed exclusively of
white men. The colored physicians of Wash
ington who wished to join the medical asso-
citation of that city could be as usefully en-
ployed in teaching the healing art to students
of their own race as in efforts to secure pro-
fessional recognition from the white doctors
who are indisposed to grant it, The preiu-
dice against the colored race may be ungene-
rous and unjust, but its existence cannot be
ignored; and it is as much beyond the reach
of law, SO far as regards the voluntary asso-
Citations of mankind, as the antagonisms
which pervade different bodies of white men.
The colored men who earnestly, uprightly,
and skilfully prosecute useful avocations,
rarely fail to command general respect and
substantial success. In quiet and unosten-
tatious way, they do more to exert a favorable
influence upon public opinion than dozens of
noisy agitators who place themselves in a false
position by seeking to force an entrance into
organizations which do not wish, and cannot
be made to- admit them. Even without the bal
lOt a nurnbar of oolOrad man in this citv hava