The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-08-06
slFrom Harper's Weekly.l
The Civil Rights Bill.

The veteran Truman Smith, ex-senator
from Connecticut, and now eighty-three
years old, but apparently his natu-
raj force undated, has written letter to
Senator Brownlow, of Tennessee, SYM
pathizing with his opposition to the Civil
Rights Bill. Mr.. Smith is good repre-
sentative of a sturdy New England sa-
gacity, and his opinions are well worth
considering. Moreover, like Mr.. Brown
low, he is Republican. His argument,
indeed, is from the view of party policy,
and asserts that the bill is an attempt to
extirpate prejudice by legislation, and
inevitably have the effect of closing the
schools in the Southern States, and of
alternating the whole white population,
so that ignorance will be perpetuated,
the colored race and the poor whites will
tend to relapse into barbarism, and the
mass of the whites will politically unite
with the Democrats against the Republi-
cans, and increase the chances of a return
of the Democratic party to power in 1876
Should that event occur, Mr.. Smith
argues from the fact of the election of
Mr. Eaton as Democratic Senator from
his speech after his election. in which he
defined his position, what the Democratic
policy toward the colored citizens would
doubtless be. The national purpose in
regard to them is shown in the Four
teenth and Fifteenth amendments, which
gave the care of their rights and interests
as a separate class to the national gov
ernment by authorizing Congress to- en-
force the articles by suitable legislation.
Now Eaton has much to say of State
rights and Federal despotism; and the
meaning of his remarks, in Mr.. Smiths
opinion, is that under Democratic ascend
ency the necessary legislation for the
enforcement of the protection guaran-
teed by the amendments would cease,
and while chattel slavery could not be
restored, the Democratic doctrine that
the colored race have no rights which
white men are bound to respect would
become the rule, with evil results that
NAV be imagined. Thus the Civil Rights
Bill, designed for the proper protection
of the colored citizens, would prove, in
Mr. Smiths judgment, their ruin.
In sympathy with his view we have a
letter from an eminent Republican in
the State of Georgia, who says: a
81 am not aware that history records
the fact of two races living together hap
PLY and prosperously for any very long
time If the Supplementary Civil Rights
Bill become a law, the public common
school system of Georgia, as well as the
most of the Southern States. will be
abandoned, in my opinion. 1t is imma-
terial what the sentiment of opposition
may be called, whether prejudice fanati-
cism, aristocracy, or. whatever: it exists,
and it cannot be overcome during the
present generation. The opposition is
stronger among the poor whites, and that
class embraces most of the Republicans,
than among the rich, who can educate
their own children. No law so odious as
this can be enforced among a people so
hostile to it. Massachusetts was perhaps
more law-abiding than the Southern
States, and the Fugitive Slave Law could
not be enforced there without producing
riots and bloodshed. My judgment is
that there is but little to be gained by
the colored man by the passage of the
law, and he will lose infinitely by it. No
man can be sustained in the Southern
States who approves it, except by the
colored voters, and the strong tendency
of such a state of things must be to pro-
duce party based exclusively on race
result greatly to be deplored by both,
but more especially by the colored man.
l think that the bill will defeat one if
mot two of the Republican members of
Congress from this State this fall. The
whites can't approve it, and the blacks
can't succeed without whites to lead, and
if some can be found to lead, they will
lead colored men only"
This is the view of a very sagacious ma
tive of the region from which he writes,
a gentleman who was not writing for
publication, but to state privately his
sincere convictions. He expresses strong
ly what is felt also by many Republicans
in this part of the country. But the sit
uation seems to US plain and imperative.
1t is the intention of the amended Con-
stitutiQn to make the new citizens per-
fectly equal with the old citizens before
the law. Of that there is no doubt what
ever. IT. therefore. they have now, all
circumstances considered, the same safe
guards of those rights that the older eiti-
zens haver they have all that the Civil
Rights Bill claims, and, as there viii be
no change, the evil results which are an
ticipated cannot arise. But if these citi-
zens have not those safeguards, upon