Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-01-18
A GRANGE OF FRONT.

A CHANGE OF FRONT.
The change in the Radical programme
has been so marked since the close of the
war in the field as to leave US in doubt
where the party will stand year hence.
The ratification of the proposed fifteenth
amendment is now pressed as if not only
the '1ife of the nation" but that of the
Radical party depended upon getting this
amendment incorporated in the constitu-
ton. By degrees, the Radicals in Con-
gress have been usurping power, until
now they have determined TO constitute
that body the centralized power of the
government. The fifteenth amend
ment is one of the most violent
and sweeping propositions that could
well be made, and proposes to completely
overthrow the entire system in which the
United States have acted from the forma-
ton of the government. 1t has always
been left to the States to say who shall
have the privilege or exercise the right of
voting within their borders, but the Radi-
Gals have become distrustful of those who
exercise this right, and have determined
that Congress and not the States shall reg
ulate the matter. The evils of such q
change of authority are mighty and man
fold. One of these evils, and among the
worst, is the Capitalization of power at
the Federal head which the transfer ne
cessitates. To show the change of front
that some of those now laboring tor make the
amendment successful have made in a
short time, we make some extracts from
an address delivered at Richmond, Ind,
by Senator Morton, in 1865, as follows :
''The first effect will be to elect colored
State Governors in every State where there
is colored State government, and in every
State where there is acolored State govern
mentto elect a negro for Governor and ne
groes for Supreme Judges. White immi-
grafton viii cease. There will be no
more white immigration to any such State.
You will absolutely shut it off, and
effectually, from the Northern
States-and from Europe, too-when-
ever that event shall happen. Thus they
will remain permanent Colored States at
the South. The white men who are now
there would remove, and would not re-
main under such dominion =
SIT is desirable to have colored State
governments? say it is not, for many
reasons. One reason is that such States
would continually constitute a balance of
power. However clearly and strongly
we admit the natural rights of the negro,
| submit to the intelligent people that
colored State governments are not desira-
bic; that they would bring about results
that are not TO be hoped for; and finally,
1 believe, would bring about war of
races.
In regard to the personal fitness and
qualifications of the negro to be voter
and political power in this country, Mr..
Morton used this language:
GAS said before, only one in five hun
bred could read; many of them, until the
last few months, were never off the plan
tatiOn, and most of them never out of the
county in which they lived and were born,
except as they were driven by the slave
drivers. Can you conceive that a body
of men, white or black, who have been
in this condition, and their ancestors be-
fore Inem, are qualified to be Immediately
elevated from their present state into the
full exercise of political power, not only
to govern themselves and their neighbOrs.
but TO take part in the Government of the
United States Can they be regarded as
intelligent and Independent voters? The
mere statement of the fact furnishes the
answer to the question"
In a message delivered by him as Gov
ernor of the State of Indiana, in the fall
Of 1865, he uses this language:
''The subject of suffrage is by the Ma
tional Constitution expressly referred to
the determination of the several States,
and it cannot be taken from them without
a violation of the Constitutional the
letter and spirit of that instrument. "
r > ''TOu cannot take from
a State the control of the question of
without violating the letter and
spirit of the Constitution of the United
States at is a fact
50 manifest that it should not be called in
question by any, that a people who are
Just emerging from, the barbarism of
slavery are not qualified to become a part
If our political system, and to take part
n the government of themselves and
heir neighbors, but of the whole
IF the United States. So far
rom believing that negro suffrage is a
emedy for all our national ills, | doubt |
whether it is remedy for any, and rather |
'elieve that its enforcement by Congress |
would be more likely to subject the negro |
0 mercHess persecution than confer on
i'm any substantial benefit
Now Mr.. Morton votes for propositions
equiring Virginia, Mississippi, Texas and
+eorgia to ratify the proposed amendment
recedent TO representation in Congress.
lOrton furnishes only one of the noted |
lstances in which leading Radicals have
hanged front on this question.