The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1872-03-21

who, il this disabling statute, shall not
be repealed before the next Presi.
Dental campaign, will make at one OF
the prominent and distinguishing
issues ID that election. No man, it is
true, has right to demand the support
OF bis fellow citizens Cor Office. 1t should
be their free and spontaneous gift. But
every freeman should have the right
to be the recipient of their confidence if
they think proper to bestow it upon
him. To declare person unworthy OF
Office or public trust, is to proclaim his
inferiority, if not his infamy; it Is to
fix mark upon his forehead; to sep
arate him from the rest Of the commu'
nifty by clear and we'll defined line oil
degradation; to assimilate his condition
to that Of a pariah of Hindoostan, aud
to make him an enemy and depredator
upon that society OF which he might
otherwise be an useful member. In
eligibility to office 10 this State, 80 far
as men OF mature age are concerned, is
one of the punishments annexed to the
most infamous crimes. He, (Mr. FL
had no authority, certainly no instruc
tons from his constituents, in dealing
with the interests Of any OF the citizens
OF this State, to treat color as crime,
or ignorance as a felony. He had had
no agency in elevating the black man
to those rights of citizenship which be
ENJOYS in this State; but since it had
been done by competent legal and Con
stitutonal authority, he would respect
and protect bis ights. II evils shall
result from this policy, none of its
responsibilities attach to him, and all
that is LETT to him will be to battle man.
fully with those evils, aud to seek to
remedy and redress them as the best
interests of society may require.
The gentleman from Tyler Mr.. john
son, } and the gentleman from Jefferson
(Mr. Travers), have both referred to an
opinion expressed by him few days
ago in Convention that there was moth.
ing iu the Fourteenth or Fifteenth
Amendments Of the Constitution Of the
United States which imposed any re-
straiut upon the people of West Vir-
GINA in declaring colored citizen
ineligible to office il such should be
their will and pleasure. He (Mr. F.
had expressed that opinion, and such
was his opinion still. His course upon
this question was not determined by
ANYTHING in the Federal Constitution,
but by rights given and secured by the
Constitution Of this State. 1t was
further determined by considerations
Of public policy, public justice and of
public faith. He did not admire the
reasoning of those gentlemen who were
prompt enough to acknowledge the
rights of the colo.ed race where re
quired TO do so by the ovsrshadowing
authority of the people Of the
United States, but who, in ret,ibu-
ton for that concession, were
equally as prompt to prescribe, punish
aud Cypress them where the limits OF
compulsion ceased. He was disposed
to pursue a more liberal and magnsni-
nous course toward them, and while
socially he would interpose an impassa-
bic gulf between the two races, yet he
would retain and secure to them every
civil and political right which they now
enjoy under the Constitution, and would
literally use the means and resources Of
the State to elevate them as moral,
religious aud political elements OF the
community OF which they were men,
bers.
While he conceded that the four
teenth and fifteenth amendments did
not impose any obligation upon this
State to make the colored citizen eligl-
BILE to office; still all must coucede that
it was the manifest purpose OF the Con-
stitution to place them in condition
where every political right would be
secured to them as ettectually as 1t Is
secured to the white man. This is not
done in terms by those amendments,
and the reason why that protection was
limited exclusively to the elective fran
chise, he thought could be readily ex-
planned. The originators Of those
amendments were not looking to the
condition of the colored race as it is
now found in West Virginia, where it
scarcely an appreciate element 10 her
elections; they were looking to that
race as it existed in all the Southern
States of the Union where their num-
bers are so formidable that to secure to
ttem, in any of those States, the cleo
tive franchise, is to give them the means
bv which every other political right
must be secured. Thus, in every South.
ern State, the elective franchise and
eligibility to office are concomitant and
iuseparable rights. 1t was not supposed
that 10 those States where their num-
bers were few aud their influence utterly
insignificant, there could be any motive
for the application to them OF pros
criptive policy that would iuexorably
and BY constitutional disqualification,
debar them from all participation in
public employment.
He (Mr. F.) would not again, as he
had so fully done few days ago in the
Convention, 90 into any examination
OF the statistics OF that population in
West Virginia. His views upon that
subject had not been sontroverted on
the floor. He would simply repeat
that of the ninety thousand votes in
al "a
about three thousand, which was at the
rate of one in thirty; that in a large
majority of counties, it did not form an
appreciable element in the election that
only in four counties did it reach to one
in ten, and that only in one county in
the State did it amount to one-fourth,
and from his knowledge OF the condition
Of things in that county he would say
there was not county in the State IN