The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1869-05-20

AlNth amendment lnflets as penalty
the loss of representation, in proper
ton to the number of citizens disqual-
flied from voting on any other ac-
count except crime or participation in
rebellion, which eifectually disposes
of the idea of an educational qualifica-
ton, the disguise under which it is
hoped that some can be induced to
accept universal suffrage for seven
hundred thousand ignorant negroes.
The first section of said amendment,
making all persons born in the United
States and subject to its jurisdiction,
citizens, confers- the right of citizen
ship upon all Indians, civilized and
unciyilized; and their right to vote
under the proposed fifteenth amend
nent cannot be abridged by the Uni
ted States in the territories, nor by
any state in which they reside, though
if not taxed she will gain no represen-
tation in the apportionment, notwith-
standing she. is forced to allow them
to vote. Thus the negro, the Indian
and the Chinaman, too, when Congress
strikes the word "white" out of the
naturalization laws, as is already pro-
posed by pending bill, by Senator.
Sumner, will vote without restriction
all over the United States,
Seventy thousand Cinnamon, or
more, are already in California, where
their Josh-houses and pagan temples
are already appearing. The Chinese
woman is arriving, which means pop
ulation and permanent settlement
The Pacific slope will soon be over
whelmed by their immigration, if they
are to be invited over TO take part III
the affairs of our government. The
.proneness of the Chinese people to
gather together in clans and secret So
cieties, through which they ere moved
rs solid bodies, is well understood,
and, therefore, would be dangerous in
communities whose people respect in
dividuality in themselves and their
neighbors. Living ages under CEN
tralized despotism, they are incapable
of possessing single idea common to
our system of free government, and
will furnish just the material to be
voted in masses under the direction of
gigantic railroad monopolies, who,
combined with venal Congress, will
consolidate a political power in the
land that would buy and sell out at
pleasure our public men to accomplish
their land-robbing and treasury-pIun-
dering schemes. Negro fanaticism
should pause in view of such conse-
quences, the logical result of theory
which sacrifices the traditional liberty
and constitutional independence of its
own race to the Moloch of corrupt
centralism at Washington, which
stands ready to seize upon the votes
of the African and Asiatic races, ever
the subservient tools of despot chief
tains, to accomplish the political
schemes of great moneyed power.
The second section of the proposed
fifteenth amendment, giving Congress
power to enforce its provisions by ap-
propriate legislation, places, practical
ly, all the elections in the States at the
mercy of a party majority in Congress,
who can, in times OF excitement, read
lily find preteXts to reconstruct any
state legislature whose politics are
hostile, as is now threatened in the
case of the state of Georgia. The old
words necessary and proper" which
have received well-known judicial
interpretation, seems purpesely- to
have been dropped, and the word tap
propriate" substituted in this section :;
under which Congress can do anthing
it pleases without any remedy against
unconstitutional legislation in h e
courts because it can be the only Judge
of what legislation is appropriate. !"
Ohio was fully canyassed on the
subject of negro suffrage in 1867, and
the proposition rejected by over 50,-
600 majority /; even majority of the
Republican Senators on this floor hold
A., Il - 80
against negro suffrage in Ohio, q much
less Objectionable proposition than
this amendment, because it would
have been subject so alteration by our
own people, without consulting other
States, Congress, for its own purposes,
having illegally conferred suffrage up
on 100000 negroes, to rule the States
of the South, now seeks to use that
power fraudulently secured through
the forms of mock Legislatures, crea-
tures of its own will, to put the same
yoke upon States hitherto free. The
more political power it can thus con-
centrate into its own hands, the more
it will have to sell out to the corrupt
rings" now reveling on public plum
der at Washington, until the State
Governments, the natural and consti-
tutional guardians of personal liber-
ty, will be reduced to the condition of
the carpet-bag Legislatures of the
South, existing only at the sufferance
of their Congressional masters.
Disregarding the teachings of all
history, that the only basis of stable
nationality is the homogenity of the
people, in contradistinction to mon
grelism, the experiment is to be tried
of conducting a republican govern
ment by forced political fusion of
bitterly hostile races from the anti
podes of the human family. 1t re-
quired four centuries of common gov
ernment, ensanguined by oft-repeated
bloody wars, to obhterate the distinc-
tions between the Norman and Saxon
races, physiologically similar. Yet it
is, sought now, by mere paper decree,
to compel millions of the Anglo-Sax-
on race to share political power with
their former negro slaves, an inferior
race, who never took any part in Or
ganizing and maintaining this or any
other civilized government. A consti-
tutional amendment is the means Sc
lected to bind the people of Ohio and
other States to the Federal Govern
ment in enforcing this equality against
men of their own blood and race, if in
the future they should become restive
under such a calling and intolerable
humiliation. On this point ex-Gov-
ernor Cox. an original anti-slavery
man educated at Oberlin, in his cele-
brated letter of July 25, 1866, says:
"Just stepping as we are from the
battlefield on which the descendants
of common ancestry, SO little re-
moved from us that we can literally
reach back our hands to grasp those
offouri common sires, having waged
the most tremendous and terrible OF,
modern wars, it does not become us
to argue that peaceful discussion will
quietly settle differences which in for
lnertilnes were settled by the sword !;
but the memory of the almost present
rs we'll as of the remote past. calls up
on us to build our polity solidly upon
principles which experience as well as
reason prove to be durable, and moro
than ever to avoid dcluding ourselves
with a cry OF peace, peace, when