Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-12-14
AvoICEFRoM OLD WILSON
Negro Suffrage, and what of it.

Negro Suffrage, and What of it.
To the Editors Of the Union and American:
In its issue of Dec. 9, the Banner take
the people of Wilson and Shelby countie
and many of the best and brayest citizen
of the State to task in language which
might have suited the columns of the New
York Tribune, or one of the insane
TRADES Of Wendell Phillips. Either O
these might have urged that there
is no argument against negro suffrage but
ignorant prejudice" They profess tc
believe in the natural and actual equality
of men. But they have not yet taught the
people of New York the dogma If the
"tgHOrGRt Er6iudices" of the people Of
New York are not yet overcome, may we
not find some slight excuse for the ''igROr-
ant prejuG6ces" of the Southern people to
whom negro suffrage appears present and
pressing degradation
Can't the Banner ooncede that
some few poor misguided men,
may, in their simplicity, find some other
argument satisfactory to them against ne
gro suffrage, besides Ignorant prejudice?"
Can't the Banner, by a great stretch of
magnanimity, grant that there may possibly
be one of ''the intellect and chivalry of
Tennessee" who opposes this alarming in
novation upon the forms and theories of
government under which he was so unfor-
tunate as to be reared, without deserving
the denunciation, in the choice language Of
the Banner, of being ''desigRiRg l0retch ?"
Is the Banners estimate of chivalry so
high that no gentleman can come up to its
standard of intellect and chivalry" with
out embracing the negro as imam and a
brother?"
Now, who proposes to take any existing
right" or property right of franchise
from the negro? Can the Fourteenth or
the Fifteenth Amendment to the federal
Constitution, adopted by an illegal and I'M
constitutional number of States or by
States under duress, give him a right !?
Can the VIGOROUSLY illegal and unconstitu-
tional action of tyrannical minority, by
Legislative usurpation, in our own State,
confer upon him a right? Certainly not.
Suppose he has a right, or may hereafter
acquire such right, under the simple forms
of law, by legal and constitutional amend
ment of the federal or State constitution,
must every man be denounceda as design
ing wretch" who thinks the safety and
honor Of the country require that the bal
lot should be taken from him? We say.
No; eT-cGtbedrG, the Banner says, Yes.
IAN honest mans the noblest work of
GOd!' Eureka! at last. There is an in
carnate modest work" in the Banner,
and there is no honest man in the whole
State of Tennessee who differs in opinion
with this rare specimen-for he has a con-
tempt for treachery.
Treachery to what? Oh, We have made
pledges! But, pray have any of the
pledges, to which you refer, ever been &C
oepted by the negroes? Nay, verify! You
have piped unto them, but they have not
danced; more than that, you ''have
incurred unto them, but they have not
lamented." They have Knocked rs in our
calamity and have voted dead solid
against as every time.
no taxation without representation" =
Alas for every fenlHe-sOye, (old maid or
widow alien, idiot or lunatic in the land
Eheu! Alas!
"0ur Caesar hath grown so greGt that
he now cares nOught for the applause or
appreciation Of poor white men-or in his
elegant diction- the groundlings K Why
didn't he say low NEAR, whites at once?) In
his effort TO eXalt the elegant colored gen
tlemen (''who are not patrons of newspa-
pers or printer s ink, doubtless because they
cant read even the names on the ballots
which they cast to a standard evidently
higher in his estimation, than that of an
honest, poor, white man who dsres to
differ with him upon this issue, he GER
tainly forgets that the poor grounding"
is the first to suffer from this
-, H., g
the races.
Again should this conquered Ephraim
cease to be joined to the idols which his
white and free fathers worshipped, and
fall down and worship the black
idol at whose shrine the Banner bows,
more especially when Ephraim is
that he Is right upon principle
when he cant see the ultimate gain in
bowling 'the pregnant hinges of the knee
that thrift may follow fawning' when he,
Ephriam, believes that all right is expedi.
all wrong is inexpedient?
Oh, The whip in the hands of our
'RadiCal taskmasteTs' which can teach the
honest and chivalric to treat a question
so grave from mere motives of expedi-
ency in a style which he might not have
elected if an original proposition.
"FOrc6d dntGgOHismI If the negro
votes, antagonism must surely follow; if
not. the white man has not the least mo-
tive for antagonism, but every reason to
protect him.
Honest men and soldiers, brave as any
of ''Tennessee's chivalry,' may be de
nounced as demagogues, who indulge in
''clap-trap;' as designing wretches,
without ordinary capacity without
''6rGiRs,' with voices pitched to the high
est keynote on the gamut of ignorant
prejudice = but this certainly indicates
jaundiced views-insbility, by fair srgu-
ment, TO Iqaintain positions new and
strange new converts who are Over-zeal-
GUS and are in great danger Of falling away
from the doctrines and maxims of their
ingenious youth before they learned the
meaning of erpediency. HIEMOs.