National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-04-08
WHITE AND BLACK CITIZENS.

1t is a part of the unwritten law that
the word citizen IN the old Constitution of
the General Government alludes to white
native males and persons who may become
citizens under enactments of Congress.
Under those eractments foreigners may be-
come natu-alized, and the blacks have been
enfTaDchiscd by constitutional amendment.
Now that the Know-Nothing opposition to
foreigners has almost, if not entirely, DIS
appeared, does any one attempt to say that
naturalized citizens can be prevented from
voting the Democratic ticket without arous
ing the opposition of the moral sense of the
country? Yet black men, who are made
voters by an amendment TO the Constitu-
ton, are prevented from voting the Repub-
lican ticket, and the question is asked,
wherein docs the remedy reside? The an
swer of the State Rights Democrats is that
the States alone have complete jurisdiction,
while the Republicans claim that when the
voting is for an office created by and of the
National Government the laws of Congress
would apply. To this latter answer the
argument is advanced that the negro alone
is protected under laws enacted in pursu-
ance of the Fifteenth Amendment, andthat
he therefore has more rights than the white
man. Although when the General Gov
erDment was organized there was no dis
tinction on account of color or race, the eX-
istence of black servitude in some of the
Colonies established an apparent necessity
that the right of suffrage should be limited
10 exclude slaves. Subsequently as new
States were formed and admitted into the
Union this restriction became almost uni
versal, and it was admitted that white men
deprived of their rights had recourse to the
State courts against the persons so depriv
ing them. That recourse still exists, but
as in the case of the blacks the State courts
sometimes refuse or neglect to give them
justice. Congress therefore passed the Ea-
forcement Act, so-called, and it was in
tended to apply TO citizens of every class
and all distinctions. The fact that Con-
gress claimed 10 derive its power to pass
that law from the Fifteenth Amendment,
under which the blacks were enfranchised,
for the purpose of protecting black voters,
is now used to show that, as we have ex-
planned, the blacks have rights which the
whites have not. But the logic of the
case, as we have put it, shows that the
enlargement of the right Of suffrage by
constitutional amendment was clearly in
tended to merely embrace within that en-
largement an additional number of native
citizens. If this logic is correct the En-
fOrNpDnaOf nj anDliac alil-a m and tho
other, and the rights of one citizen are as
much to be protected by Congress as those
of any other. The Fifteenth Amendment
was not designed to erect a privileged
class, but merely to add to a class
already erected, and laws passed IN
der and by virtue of its provisions
are applicable to the entire class. The
blacks being admitted are on footing with
those who were admitted before, or those
who were recognized as citizens at the ORR
gin, and laws passed for their protection
are merely intended to enforce that admis-
sion against the prejudiced action of a trea-
sonable majority. At the same time such
laws are comprehensive in their declara.
lions regarding trace, color and previous
condition of servitude''-a phrase which
would apply to white slaves, if there had
been such, as much as to black slaves, and
which should not now be construed to
mean anything more than to extend the
protection heretofore enjoyed by privi-
legged majority to a newly -enfranchised mi
nority. Ifthe State Rights Democrats are
in the right, then the Enforcement Act is
inapplicable either to whites or blacks; but
if the Republicans are right, then, so far as
elections for national offices are concerned,
the enforcement Act is applicable to every
citizen Of the United States