Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-11-05
The Fifteenth Amendment.

The FIFTEENTH Amendment.
NOTHING of recent date, in connection
with our politics, is, or can be, Of more
importance to all parties of the Republic
than the pending or Fifteenth Amend
ment to the National Constitution, where
by it is proposed to put a final extinguish-
er upon all further negro questions in
american politics. The purpose in franz
ing this amendment was to establish a
standard of American citizenship rather
higher than anything of previous date;
for while, by the Fourteenth Amendment,
all persons born or naturaliZed in the
United States are declared citizens of the
Republic and of the several States thereof,
it allowed of disfranchisement on account
OF race, color, or previous condition Of
servitude, which, though unavoidable at
the time of its adoption, cannot now be
regarded by rejecting men as anything
less than monstrous, placing, as it did, the
suffrage in the attitude of distinguishing
hlde0us system of caste, and making
badges OF servitude where none should
exist.
Under the new, or Fifteenth Amend
ment no such distinction can be tolerated
any longer in this land of freedom, since
they are and can be nothing more than
remnants of that fearful bondage called
chattel slavery, that we have exterminat-
ed at the cost of so much blood and treas
ure. whether, having gone SO far and
done so much, and paid such an awful
price to rid ourselves of this monstrous
creation OF cruelty, cupidity and avarice,
we should now allow this "Reminiscences
OF 1T to blacken our statutes and cast dis
grace and reproach upon the nation is a
question for every man to solve for him
SELF Ii we do so allow it to remain, we
may rest assured that, like slavery, it will
. constitute an endless source of agitation.
political trouble, internecine strife and dis
cord throughout the Republic. What
that state of things is we know from sad
experience, and the sufferings endured by
the whole country from it should, by this
time, have warned all sufficiently against
it.
Yet we find these Bourbons of the Re
public, the patient Democrats all rallying
to a man against all attempts to change
the statute, and determined at all hazards,
i'll every way, legal and irregular, and to
the last degree, to resist the ratification of
the Fifteenth Amendment, which is
destined to be new charter of freedom,
to be an example shining from afar unto
the nations of the earth, as to the capacity
of humanity for self government. These
desperate lovers of agitation and caste
hung on to the last vestige of that system
which has for so many years been their
very meat and drink, politically, as
though it tore their very heart-strings to
separate from it. They see that it must
come eventually. There is hardly a man
of them but will privately admit it in an
unguarded moment.
Men say "Those poor blacks are too
ignorant and degraded to be allowed to
vote" But it seems they know their
friends from their enemies; that they
know free institutions from aristocratic;
that they know those who will sustain and
protect from those who oppose them.
The purpose of mans vote is to enable
him to defend his own rights. Hence
those blacks are quite as intelligent to that
end as most other people, and may freely
be allowed to vote.
We do not take the ground that the
right to vote is an inherent one, although
Jefferson's doctrine of the right of self
government seems to bear that interpreta
ton. Jefferson doubtless meant that the
people, as body, have the right of self
government, subject, of course, to restric-
ton indispensable, in order to guard the
purity of the ballot-box and to distinguish
the permanent resident and the law abiding
citizen from the shifting mass of adven-
turers and unsettled people, and the horde
OF vagabonds and thieves. But that every
permanent resident should be subject to
the same equal rights, we do maintain and
always have. The colored citizen is, like
ourselves, native. He has never known
any other land or flag He never eXpectS
to know any other He has his record on
the battle-fields and in the army rolls of
the Republic. He lives here subject to the
same condition of life as the rest, and asks
nothing more than to take his chances.
This amendment is one of peace and
harmony. 1t will put the negro upon the
same level North and South, and make
him no longer protege of the nation be-
cause of his emancipation, but an en-
tranchised citizen like the rest, to take his
chances as best he may. 1t will forever
put an end to agitation on the subject of
the negro.-Phitadaphia North american.