The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-07-28
What 1t Is to be a Radical.

A Radical is one who believes that human
nature in the black race is precisely like hui
man nature in the white, and that apparent
differences are due to circumstances only that
political distinctions, therefore, on account of
race, color or previous condition, are dictated,
not by reason, but by prejudice; and that the
right to vote is moral right, as inalienable as
the right to life itself, belonging to man SIM
ply by reason of the fact that he is man, O
political animal. and not brute beast. If a
sincere Radical be pointed to the evils that
sometimes spring from suffrage, through the
ignorance or viciousness of voters-as White
deny the fact, but will deny that the remedy is
vote is, he would say, the right to exert politi-
being with political nature just as the right
to move about belongs to the physical man by
reason of his being created for motion. The
remedy for the wrong use of power, either po-
litical or physical, is rather TO EDUCATE how
to use it, than to take the power away. As the
crime in tie wrong use of physical force
must be very heinous to deserve physical death,
so the perversion of political power must be of
the most fragrant character to deserve political
death, or the deprivation of the right to exert
political power The ten commandments must
not be pronounced impracticable by reason of
sin, nor universal suffrage condemned because
of its failure to realize a political millennium
And it is the fact that the Radical political
creed is thus founded upon moral basis, upon
certain enthusiastic beliefs Of what is just and
right, and not simply upon convictions of con-
venience and utility, which gives it, and ever
will give it tremendous, and, frequently, a
revolutionary power.
Z = fn fhotr NJ
Radical, if we have given candid description
of what it is to be sincere one above. We
no more regard voting as an essential part of
sential to Justice. The one like the other, is
a means, a valuable expedient towards attain.
ing the end Of all government, which is justice,
but which may be attained through organisms
which exclude universal suffrage and the trial
by jury Neither do we consider it bit
sounder philosophy to say, that the same sort
and amount of political power ought to be
given to races living together, which differ in
their mental and moral capacity, than to assert
that children and adults should have the same
amount of choice in the disposal of their time,
and in the regulation of their bodily locomo-
ton or of their tongues. There are places
where children should be seen and not
heard" and there are places where they should
not even be seen. In brief, just as in other
spheres of thought and action, circumstances
alter cases." so, in the political world, the wis.
dom and the justice of comforting political
power or the right to vote on any individual or
set of individuals, should be determined by
considerations of time, character, race, color
and previous condition, and not by moral spec
ulati've distractions We consent, therefore,
to negro suffrage sincerely, but not, as does the
Radical, with tanatical political faith; not as
to something necessarily right and wise in it.
SELF but as perhaps the best solution of the
problem of the free negro, with which we are
obliged to deal, and as perhaps the best expe-
dient for avoiding even greater evils than any
that negro suffrage can be supposed to involve,
when the certain prospect of the whites being
soon able to harmonic with it, or that failing,
to overpower it by steadily increasing numbers,
stands clearly out to the eye that will glance
from the present to the early future. And
lastly, if the right to political power be NOR
al right, as real Radicals believe, then, since
there is no distinction of sex i'll morals, and
what is right for a man is right for woman,
consistent Radical cannot but be an earnest
advocate of woman-suffrage, which We reject.
We are not Radical Winnsboro Neo0s.