Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-04-19
HOW 1T WAS ACCOMPLISHED
The Fifteenth Amendment &
Fraud.
Protest of the Democratic Men,
bers of Ohio Legislature.

The Democratic representatives of the
Ohio General Assembly have protested
against the ratification of the Fifteenth
Amendment in the manner following
sit was accomplished by vote of 55 to
81 against the known and expressed
wish of the electors of the State-after ne
gro suffrage had been submitted to a direct
vote of the people of Ohio and had been
rejected by over 90, 900 majority. The re-
suit was obtained by series of frauds con-
trived to deprive the people of the right to
control the elective franchise within their
own State. -Four representatives from the
county of Hamilton, which in 1867, gave
over 1000 majority against negro suffrage,
and in 1869 repeated the verdict by over
], 800 majority for George II. Pendleton for
Governor, voted for the ratification of the
proposed amendment in utter disregard of
the will of the very voters who elected
them. Chosen as non-partisan to this body,
they betrayed their constituents by the
most shameful party votes, to retain in their
seats, without investigating their cases.
two members TO aid in forcing through the
proposed Fifteenth Amendment-one of
whom, S. E. Blakeslee, was sworn in at
the organization by the Secretary of State,
represent the county of Williams, which
was not entitled to separate representation
under the existing apportiOnment; and
the other, Elijah Glover, of Scioto
county, presented a certificate of
election, showing by paper attached TO
it containing his resignation of the Office of
Commissioner of Bankruptcy, that he was
not eligible TO a seat in the General As
sembly under the Constitution of Ohio,
because at the time of his election he held
an Office under the authority of the United
States. BY the votes of these two men
the proposed Fifteenth Amendment was
passed, and all action in their cases pur-
posely postponed by the manufactured
majority on this floor until that subject was
disposed of. An effort to obtain a decis-
ion in the case of Blakeslee before the vote
on the Fifteenth Amendment was defeated
by the vote Of Blakeslee himself, in viola
ton of all parliamentary law, under the
ruling of the speaker made to sustain him
self upon an appeal taken from a
decision ruling out of order a resolution
declaring that Blakeslee had no right to a
seat in the House. The seat of Glover, re-
turned by a vote of % majority, was con-
tested on the ground that he was elected by
fifty negro votes, cOnfessedly cast for him,
two-thirds of whom were not legal voters
even under the decision of our Supreme
Court in the question of preponderance of
white blood Thus the Fifteenth Amend
ment was forced upon the people of Ohio
by the illegal votes of the persons whom it
was intended to enfranchse before they
had any right to vote. Indeed it was fitting
that this measure, proposed by a
Congress who secured a two-thirds
majority by excluding enough men,
bers, and then in defiance of all law pro-
ceeded by military coercion to force the
so-called ratification through mock Legis-
latures, created at will, to register the
edict, should consummate their tri-
umph over popular liberty by such means.
1t is not our purpose to re-argue the ques-
ton, but simply to record the facts. The
people in future will decide how far a
change in the Constitution of the United
States thus obtained by force and fraud
| combined, is of any validity. OF the thirty
States claimed to have fled ratifcations of
the proposed Fifteenth Amendment, Indi-
ana never ratified, New York resoinded its
| ratification before three fourths of the
States were claimed to have ratified, and
Georgia is not yet admitted to rep
| resentation, or recognized as having
the rights of State in the Union, SO that
| the twenty-eight States are still wanting to
| give validity to the usurpation. Revolu-
| tons never 90 backward, and the party of
Capitalization will yet learn, to their cost,
| that their own precedents will finally work
| out their humiliation.
TSigned by all the Democratic members.