Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1872-04-09

ONCE 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 pub
lie trust, is to proclaim his inferiority, if not
his infamy; it is to fix mark upon his fore
head; to separate him from the rest of the
community by clear and well defined line of
degradation; to assimilate his condition to
that of pariah of Hindoostan, and to make
him an enemy and depredator upon that so>
ciety of which he might otherwise be an use
full member. .Ineligibility to Office in this
State, SO far as men of mature age are con>
cerned, is one of the puBishments annexed to
the most Infamous crimes. He, (NIr. f.,
had no authority, certainly no instructions
from his constituents, in dealing with the in
terests of any of the citizens of this State, to
treat color as crime. or ignorance as felony
He had had no agency in elevating the black
man to those rights of citizenship which he
enjoys in this State; but since it had been
done by competent legal and Constitutional
authority. he would respect aud protect his
rights. IF evils shall result from this policy,
none of its responsibilities attach to him, and
all that is left to him will be to battle man-
fully with those evils, and to seek to remedy
and redress them as the best interests of So
ciety may require.
The gentleman from Tyler (Mr. johnson. y
and the gentleman from j Jetferson (Mr. Trav.
ers,) have both referred to an opinion ex>
pressed by him q few days ago in Convention
that there was nothing in the Fourteenth or
Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution of
the United States which imposed anv restraint
upon the people of West Virginia in declar>
ing coored citizen ineligible to. o.office if such
should be their will and pleasure He (NIr.
- had expressed that opinion. and such was
his opinion still. His course upon this oues-
tion 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 colored race
where required TO do 20 by the ovcrshadowing
authority of the people of tho United States,
but who, in retribution for that concession,
were equally as prompt to prescribe, pnnish
pu'sion ceased. He was disposed to pursue
more liberal and magnanimous course toward
them, and while socially he would interpose
an impossible gulf between the two races. vet
he would retain and secure TO them every civil
and political right which they now enjoy under
the Constitution, and would liheraliv use the
means and resources of the State to elevate
them as moral, religious and political elements
OF the community of which they were mem.
bcrs.
While he conceded that the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments did not impose any OBJ
legation upon this State to make the colored
citizen eligible to Office still all must concedo
that it was the manifest purpose of the Con-
ssitution to place them in a condition where
every political right would be secured to them
as eftectually as it is secured to the white man.
This Is not done in terms by those amend-
ments, and the reason why that protection was
limited exclusively to the elective franchise.
he thought could be readily explained The
originators of those amendments were not look.
ing to the condition of the colored race as it
is now found in West Virginia, where it is
scarcely an apprcciable element in her cleo
tions; they were looking to that race as it ex.
listed in all the Southern States Of the Union
where their numbers are so formidable that to
secure to them, in any of those States, the
elective franchise. is to give them the means
by which every other political right must he
secured. Thus, in every Southern State, the
elective franchise and eligibility to Office are
concomitant and inseparabe rights. II was
not supposed that in those States where their
numbers were few and their influence utterly
insignificant, there could be any motive for
the application to them of proscrptive
policy tat would inexorahly aud BY constis-
tntional disquai. 6cation, debar them from all
participation in public employment
He (Mr. F) would not again, as he he'd so
fully done few days ago in the Convention
go into any examination ofthe statistics of that
population ia West Virginia. His views upon
hat h..l
floor. He would simply repeat that of The
ninety thousand votes in this State the coored
vote amounted to about three thousand. which
was at the rate of one in thirty; that in
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 which the black man had less chance of
obtaining official employment.
Did any gentleman upon that floor doubt
that since the fourth Thursday in April. 1871,
the colored citizen was eligible to Office in
this State !? By decisive vote of the people
cast upon that day, he was invested with all
the political rights enjoyed by the white man.
he was made voter by the existing Consti-
tuition, and as such, became possessed of all
the rights of voter under that Constitution.
one of which is eligibility to Office. From
whence, then, does this body derive its in
structions to disfranchise him to deprive him
of right which he now enjoys under the
Constitution, and to place him under per-
petual disability to enjoy that right hereafter.
He (Nlr. f } had heard no complain. of that
provision of the existing Constitution no
voice of instructions, no memorials from the
people; nor had he seen in single Journal
of this State any suggestion of such change
in our fundamental law
As the gentleman from Marion (NIr. Hay.
mondl SO well said on Yesterday. If tits vera