Litchfield enquirer., 1873-01-30

| ting With that Schemes have Tn many in- stances failed to govern even tolerably, the responsibility for that failure must certainly rest upon those who devised the plan.
 We readily concede the difficulties of the problem. In some of the States concerned, a majority of the people were ex- ceedingly poor, exceedingly ignorant, and bred most of them in habits of servitude A minority were reasonably intelligent, large land owners, but bred in habits of mastery, and thoroughly disloyal to a government that had just subdued them by force of arms. For people so cir cumstanced, MT. Mill prescibes despot- ism
 The case most requiring consideration in ref erence to institutions, IS the not very uncommon one, in which a small but leading portion of the population, from difference of race, more civil ized origin, or other pecuarities of circumstance are markt dly superior in civilization and gen. eral chai acter to the remainder. Under these conditions, government by the representatives of the mass would stand a chance of depriving them of much of the benefit they might derive from the greater civilization of the superior ranks; while government by the representatives of those ranks would probably rivet the degrada- tion of the multitude. and leave tht m no hope of decent treatment except by ridding themselves of one of the most valuable elements of future advancement. The best prospect of improve ment for people thus composed, lies in the ex- istence of constitutonally unlimited or at least practically preponderant, authori y in the chief ruler of the dominant class.-On Kepresentuteve Gocernnent, page 33
 Applying Mir. Mills theory to the case in question we should have had the just solution of the Southern problem in the establishment of subordinate, territorial governments, the supreme, controlling authority resting in this case not in To- cal despot but in the national govern ment. Such was the solution actually proposed by the ablest and most radical Republicans. The majority, however, in their desire to destroy class-tyranny throughout the South went to the other extreme of establishing the tyranny of the irresponsible, ignorant majority; and the result has been misgovernment to an extent never before equalled in this coun- try; the rule of corrupt and incompetent officials, State bankruptcy, and taxation to the verge of confscation. We still be- lieve that of the two evils-class govern ment by the intelligent white minority, or misgovernment by the ignorant ma jority-the Republican party chose the least. Their only fault lay in abdicating all authority over communities whose so cial condition was so bad as to preclude, for the time at least, the possibility ofsuc- cessful self government; and now that the consequences of that error have proved so serious, the nation has right to ex- pect remedy at their hands if any remedy is possible.
 What surprises us most in our Goshen friends communication is his refusal to attribute Southern misgovernment to what seems to us it's obvious causes. A member of the dominant party of a state that finds it necessary to disfran- chise small minority, too ignorant to read, ought not to be at loss to discover the cause of misgovernment in States which, besides their ignorant black major ities, are cursed with large minority of ignorant whites. We again quote the em- phatic language of Mir. Mill, an authori- ty in most cases sufficiently radical without being liable to the accusation of partisan bias that might be brought against any American writer
 Iregard it as wholly inadmissible that any per son should participate in the suffrage, without be- ing able to read write, and, I will add, perform the common operations of arithmetic. Justice | demands, even when the suffrage does not de- pend on it. that the means of attaining these ele | mentary requirements should be within the reach of every person, either gratnitously, or at an ex- pense not exceeding what the poorest, who earn l their own living, can afford If this were real ! ly the case, people would no more think of giv- ing the suffrage to 8 man who could got read than of giving it to child who could not speak, and 1t would not be society that would exclude him, but his own lazine-s. When society has not performed it's duty, by rendering this amount of instruction accessible to all, there is some hardship in the case, but it is hardship that ought to be borne If society has neglected to | ischarge two solemn obligations, the more inn portant and fundamental of the two must be | fulflle first universal teaching must precede | universal enfranchisement.-O Representative Uoceraneht, page 66.
 It IS also important, that the assembly which elected exclusively by those who pay something towards the taxes imposed. Those who pay no taxes, disposing by their votes of other people, $ money, have every motive to be lavish, and none 1 to economize. As far as money matters are con l cerned, any power of voting possessed by them is violation of the fundamental principal offree | government; severance of the power of control. from the interest in it's beneficial exercise. It amounts to allowing them to put their hands in- to other peoples pockets, for any purpose which they think fit to call public one; which in some | of the great towns of the United states is known | to have produced a scale of local taxation oner- rus beyond example, and wholly borne by the wealthier classes.-0a Rspresentatiue GOre'n- naent, page 69.
 l Most Americans would consider intelli- gence sufficient guarantee of the just ex- ercise of the suffrage without any proper ty qualification. Will our Goshen friend maintain, however, that nations, ma iority of whose voters possess neither property nor intelligence, can be safely trusted with self-governmentP If the ex- amples of,the South American republics, and of misgovernment ip our own munich palities, were not sufficient to establish the necessity of one at least of these requi- l sites, the result of Reconstruction in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida, certainly leave DO reasonable doubt of that necessity. The South American phase of ignorant suffrage results m constant revo- lution and arbitrary military rule. In New York, where the last census we have seen showed that three ffths of it's voters
 were of foreign birth, the intelligent mi
 nority preserve their property from indi-
 rect spoliation with great difficulty. h
 the South, within few weeks past, noth-
 ing has saved Louisiana, Alabama. and Arkansas, from bloody revolutions, but the national authority, unconstitutionally