Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-08-20
LATTER-DAY PROGRESS.

Tennessee's Constitution orbids mis-
cegenation marriages-forbids white
and black intermarrying, holding each
party equally criminal. The pending
Civil Rights bill would force on us
mixed schools, mixed juries, mixed bed
rooms. Grant these, and the negro
will next demand mixed marriages
the "civil right" to form married rela-
tions without regard to color. This is
mo exaggerated anticipation, because
the negroes are already demanding it.
Theirleaders and orators, the highest
opponents of the intelligence and polit-
zeal capacity of the race, logically an
nounce it as a coneomitant of civil
rights" Nay, more, they have prac-
ticed it in Mississippi, under infamous
carpet bag legislation.
Aside from the attitude of the blacks
were they quiescent on the subject
there remains the danger and the
necessity of Radicalism throwing fresh
sops continually to these ignorant al
lies in order to retain their S00,0
votes for 1875. Some tell us the ne
groes, as a race, do not demand the
pending bill; yet Radical majority in
Congress are forcing it on them and us.
In like manner other diabolisms will
be sprung 1t is better to defeat negro
civil rights in 1874 than be compelled
to face the issue of negro marital rights
in 1876, arousing to intensity the
strongest and most sacred passions of
human nature.
We are indebted to the State alone
for the provision fOrbidding miscegen-
alton marriages. Its reason and OBJ
ject is that such alliances are against
the interests of society. The two SEN
ators of Oregon, or of Maine, or any
State between, have no right to inter-
fere in this matter, and no oppOrtuni-
ties for Judging intenigently. 1t may |
be that in those States such marriages
would not work any great abuse, owing |
to their having few or no negroes.
Therefore, we cannot concede to Con-
gress, composed of all the States, the
power to regulate these domestic af- |
fairs. Yet if Congress can override
our State Constitution forbidding mixed
schools, itcan also override the provision
of that instrument against mongrel
marriages, and force on US the Massa-
chusetts model developed in Missis-
sippi. These two clauses have stood
IN our State Constitution for indefinite
years unchallenged till now. They are
fortified by the experience of over two
centuries of Anglo-Saxon civilization
on this continent. If these must fall
by the fat of Congress, what is the
rest of our State Constitution worth?
If Congress can regulate, against our
will, those affairs that are nearest and
dearest to US, what safety is there for
the rest-what is our boosted self-gov-
eminent but a mockery? 1t is not
the present pending bill that
we assail, so much as the principle In
Yolved in it, that Congress shall manip-
ulate everything in the interest of the
dominant national party, whatever it
may be.
Some may deprecate this reference
TO the porrollary of civil rights" not
withstanding the perfect logical Sc
quence. Our policy is to nip the evil
in its bud. Certainly every man who
human nature will recog-
nize, as matter of fact in practical
life, that mixed schools would inevita-
bly, lead to mixed marriages, without
any help whatever from Congressional
lawgivers.