Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1870-03-24

s2. Congress shall have power TO
enforce this article by appropriate
Legislation.
The measure now rests as q law,
and only awaits the Presidents
Proclamation TO become part Of the
national code. This will soon come,
and then, the work will be done, and
the Constitution Of our country will
guarantee what tine Declaration Of
independents proclaimed. Itwould
have been well, and have made the
day doubIy sacred, had the PTocla-
nation OF Ratification been issued on
the anniversary of Washington
birth, or Of Lincoln's, as it might
have been. Asi is, it will honor,
and sanctify to the patriotic hearts Of
all the world, another day.
And the New York Nation makes
the following pertinent observations:
"The Fifteenth Amendment
which provides that "the right Of
citizens to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States, or
by any State, on account Of race,
color, or previous condition Of se.:i-
tude," aud that Congress shall have
power to enforce this prohibition by
appropriate Observation-Disclosures re-
ceived the ratification Of the requisite
number Of States, and its adoption
will doubtless, shortly be proclaimed.
The reconstruction process may now
be considered closed for all practical
purposes, all excuses for inserting
fresh conditions" in the Constitu-
tons OF the two States still remain
ing "out in the cold" being removed.
Moreover, the agitation against
slavery has reached an appropriate
and triumphant conclusions; and the
negro, from being the subject Of the
strsngest struggle i'm the history Of
civilization, sinks into the rank OF an
ordinary and somewhat heavily
weighted wayfarer on the dusty and
rugged highway Of competition.
We can understand thoughtful
SOutberner feeling awestricken as he
looks ut what has come to pass. The
very feelings which he mosfcarefully
fostered, and made his boast and
glory, have been converted into in
struments OF torture, under which he
1919 --ri-I. ri;s ,"id. of race FIR
instance, makes black equality ten
fold the humiliation il would be to
any other man. His contempt for
the North, which he taught his chill
dren in their cradle, has made his
sutiugation bitter beyond the bitter
ness Of any other recorded conquest.
Every reproach he has ever heaped
on the Yankee has given the YAM
KEGS sword a keener point and the
Yankee Ordrr-boOk a dcadIier sting.
Even his hostility to 'sisns" has
given the people who love .'isms,"
and live by them an influence and
weight in politics and society which,
but for his hatred, they would never
have had.
He has the consolation Of knowing
that free love communism, RATIONAL
ism, wOman's rights, ''agrarianisn,"
free schools, and everything else Of
the KIND that he most hated, owe n
great deal Of whatever success they
have achieved to his dislike Of them.
We class them together, simply be-
cause this WAS a way he had himself.
Now that 1t is all over, and he sees
the negro on the bench land the
South Carolina bench too and i'm the
Senate Chamber. he may sit down
with the comfortable reflection that.
considered from his own point Of
view, he has shown himself the
greatest blundercr Of the modern
world. He ought to have the 18th
Amendment, engraved on his tomb.
No other epitaph would do him
Justice"