The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1872-03-23

man, 80 many more popular influences,
that can be brought to bear upon this
vote, than the one imagined, that it is
in the last extreme Improbable. that
it could ever be resorted to-asd, II Il
should. what would be. but the leglti-
mate result Of measures to which the
people in tGeir freedom choose TO resort
Tor their own pIrposes-no one surely
would propose TO interfere IN SO general
a way, with the freedom OF choice 10
popular elections.
3. Mr.. President, do 1 presume too
far, when | cay TO this honorable and
just body Of gentlemen, Nirglnlans'
who know the negro as do. and have
been eve witnesses of his course all
through the protracted and fearful
struggle which ended in first his liberia
ton, then his elevation to citizenship,
and then his enfranchisement-do 90
too far when l say this proposed pro.
scription i. unycncrous toward the negro !?
What has he done ID deserve this
gratuitous reproach upon his political
standing? In the darkest day Of ad-
versity and peril, the great masses Of
them lifted no hand against the men
and the women whom they venerated
and served. In the fields OF labor or in
the fields Of battle they stood as they
were hidden, obedient and friendly to
the last and since the conflict has end
ed here among our hills, what have We
seen but the same old reverence Tor the
su perior race about them, which made
them in other DAYS almost worshipperS
Of the just and noble men and women
to whom they were servants; and when
the vote was called for, which, by the
Flick Amendment, should strike the
shackles of political disfranchisement
from so many thousands Of our
own race, who responded more
cheerfully than the negro? And it the
question were put tomorrow to the
vote whether all political disabilities
should not at once be lifted from every
man now resting under them in West
Virginia, who doubts that the negro
would be among the readiest Of the free
to cav, Yes, let it be so 2 And, sir,
is this the man that we should need
lessly insult by mere paper proscrip'
ton from office? cannot think it.
Gentlemen talk about the Caucasian
race-and ask, will We go back on the
white MANI? will We degrade the
noble Ang'o-Saxon to equality with the
nDgroY' Sir is it DEGRADING 10 be gen.
erJus, magnanmous, noble? Has the
Anglo-Saxon achieved his p7oul dis
tinction, his royal rank among the
nations OF the earth by tramplIng upon
the feeble; insulting the helpless;
striking down his felowm man struggling
to rise? Is not, rather, the bright path
o: his progress, all along lis skyward
course, illustriouS with examples o.
generous sympathy for those who,
though in weakpes-, wereyet strugg ing
to be free? Sir, who proposes to make
the nero the equal OF the white man
What, but the power that pronounced
the curse upon the descendants Of Ham,
could do it, if it would? What, bat
fancy, tina, can give 10 airy nothing a
local habiiatio1 and a name, could
conceive the tear, that extending the
right OF office TO the negro in West
VIr,inia, where in all probability not
one will ever have office conferred upon
him, that This mere paper grant OF
courtesy will seriously imper'l our
Anglo Saxon nobility, aud incoutnently
degrade u! That the only escape from
this dreaded calamity let ia is, for the
four hundred thousand Anglo-Saxons
in the State to prescribe the seventeen
thousand negroes, that so lmperl
them, by putting the word white in
the Constitution as a qnaliti ,atlon for
office. Sir, have a different concep-
ton OF this race Theirs is the noble
ness of high erected thought, seated
in the heart Of courtesy, which stoops,
not to conquer, but 10 free, and which,
in STOPPING, bat the more signaIIy dis
plays the grandeur o its own elevation
4. Nov, sr, what is the force of the
objection, that the ad,nis .ioa OF the
negro to office has worked badly in the
South? l. the case at all parallel to
ours? Here, there is irst the remotest
probability il the world that, in a soil
tary instance or two, in the whole State,
a colored man may be elected TO some
one OF the lowest offices in the git OF
the people; there they have, in some OF
the SIa'es, filled, in quite considerable
numbers. important places OF office;
here the intellect, the education and
the capital OF tie white man are free to
compete ior official position; there the
intellect. the educ ltion and the capital
of the white man are driven from the
field of ompetition-and the offices
must be filed by the negro or the
carpet-bAg.er, or not be filed at all.
The evil result is not because the
negro is eligible, but because the native,
patriotic, intelligent white man, is not.
The country is bound over TO ignorance
and knavery-by the general proscrip-
ton OF its intelligence and virtue. The
matter is working its own cure. The
enlightened sentiment Of even he Re-
publican party is beginning to revolt at
the reflection and reproach, which
such a state OF things has brought
upon Our free institutions. so that, from
their own ranks, powerful voices are
already raised in remonstrance against
the degradation, and The remedy will be
found and soon come, not in excluding
the negro but in admitting the native
white man. We can hope or it from
no other source.
5. After all. Mr.. President, the strong
argument, | mean the argument, which
more than any other, Influences US in
this matter, is that the admission OF
the negro to the right OF office, is re-
pugnant to our feelings, offensive to
our preiudices. / would not be under
stood, sir. as using the word prejudice
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