Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1869-10-02
The XIVth Amendment.
EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF SENATOR
SHERMAN AT CANTON.

The first question is the proposed amend.
ment to the Constitution of the United States,
called the Fifteenth Amendment. This de-
cares that no State shall deprive any citizen
of the United States Of his equal right to vote
by reason of race or color.
Why should race or color be made a ground
of exclusion? If the ballot is useful for any
purpose, it is useful for to the poor, the igno
rant and the lowly 1t is designed TO protect
minOrities Other forms of government pro-
tect the rich. protect property, trade, COM
mcrce, industry, and guard carefully the rights
Of the selected few. The republican forms of
government is superior TO other forms of gov
ernment only as it extends to all alike equal
protection and favor.
If we will not stand by the principle of q
republican government, why then shall VIC eX-
cept only race composing in the Union only
one-tenth of your population, and in Ohio but
one per cent of our population? Are they
dangerous from their numbers, when no blacks
are coming to us, and many going from us,
while our own race is being sweled by an i'm
migration of which there is no parallel in his
tory? Are they turbulent, lawlcss and vio-
lent? On the contrary, if there is any pecu-
liarity in their race, it is their patience under
wrong Are they ignorant? Yes; but what
race under heaven would not be ignorant
under the ostracism they have suffered; but
they are now seeking and acquiring knowl-
edge with the assiduity we always seek what
is denied to us. Is there any man here now
who fears the Democratic nightmare of ANAL
gamation? That phantom should now be
laid at rest. The negro is now free, and she
can protect her virtue. Amalgamation was
one of the terrible evils of slavery, and did
make it daily affair of life for men to sell
their own children rs slaves. In the free
States amalgamation was rare, and now in the
Southern States it is rare compared to the time
of slavery.
Docs any man fear the competition of ne
groes in the labor and employment of life?
There is work enough and to spare for all.
Never was labor better rewarded than now
The rights of the laborer, his pay, his time,
his food, his comforts, were never more favor
able than now. The labor of the black man
will mainly be employed in raising cotton, rice
and corn in the South, articles of prime ncces-
sity, and upon which depend very much the
labor and prosperity of the North. Each
works for the other and society is so inter
woven by links of interest that we can not do
injustice to any class of laborers without doing
harm to ourselves. There have been many
grounds OF exclusion from political rights by
governments in old and recent times-age, sex,
nativity, property, education, birth, have been
the grounds OF exclusion; but this boasted
Republic of ours, founded upon generous prin-
ciples Of liberty and equality, was the first to
make the exclusion depend upon the mere
color of mans skim Gentlemen, there is no
logic or experience to justify it. 1t is the last
relic of slavery, and should be swept away
with slavery We owe it to our consistency
rs a party; we owe it to the generous princi-
Piles that have animated us in great struggle,
not to cease our efforts until the Constitution
secures to every man equality in rights and
privileges.
When this is done, as am quite sure it will
be, with or without the vote of Ohio, the Re-
publican party may proudly look over its past
history. Fifteen years of labor and struggle
though they have been checkered with many
losses and sacrifices, though tens of thousand
of brave men have given up their lives, and a
great public debt rests upon us, yet our coun-
try has received advancement, glory and pro-
gress amply commensurate for all these losses
and sacrifices.