New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-01-24
IT DON'T SEE TIE DIFFERENCE.

WIN
liberty of assigning to the REPUBLICAN
opinions which had not been advanced
by this journal, and employed the occa-
sion to vaunt the superior devotion of the
Democracy to the rights of the colored
race. 1t said:
On the contrary, the safety and strength
IOf the Democratic party lies in the colored
vote, and the black race will never be |
threatened with acknowledgements by any
intelligent Democrat, even though he may /
have no higher object in view than the tri- |
umph of his party.
To spring from the support of the
White League to the peculiar champion
ship of colored suffrage is leap which |
would make the most daring performer
on the political trapeze shrink aghast. |
Those leaders of the Democracy who are
still members of the White Mans party |
smile as they read this remuneration of !
their doctrine. They know that with the |
success of their designs the scribe who |
had written this submissive paragraph |
would either receive congratulation upon
his adroit assumption of Republican prin-
ciples, or the sack for having committed
the party journal to such an humiliating
recantation.
The suggestion that the Republican
party meditates the Acknowledgement of
the colored voters is perversion of fact
only to be accounted for from an igno-
rance of the constitutional amendments.
There seemed to have been a suspicion in
the minds of some very cautious Repub-
licans that the Democracy might in some
manner nullify the rights given the col
ored people. To ensure the right of
suffrage and legal and political equality
in other respects, provision was en-
bodied in the fourteenth amendment that
if the right of suffrage shall be "denied
or in any manner abridged except as
therein stated-in any State, the basis of
represent alton in the State in which such
notification of suffrage shall have occurred
shall be reduced in the proportion which
the number of the class so DISTINGUISHED
shall bear to the whole number of voters
in the State.
This provision has grown out of the
sensitive, perhaps out of the suspicious
care with which the Republican party
has guarded the right of colored suffrage.
1t affects no mans right to vote. 1t leaves
the civil and legal rights of the colored
people as secured by the amendments.
Were that provision of the. cons titution
enforced the colored citizen would vote,
or be voted for, as at present. He would
hold precisely the same rights with white
men in the State to which the pro vision
might be applicable, but the State in
which the colored citizen has been denied
or abridged of his rights would find its
basis of representation reduced by the de-
duction of the colored numbers from the
federal numbers of the State. In Lou
isiana this provision would at once
cut down the members of Con-
gress and of the Electoral College
one-half. The basis of represent
alton being reduced from seven hundred
and fifty thousand to three hundred and
seventy-fye thousand, the ratio of repre-
sentation remaining the same as at pres
emit, Louisiana would have three instead
of six Representatives in Congress, or five
instead of eight electoral votes. Every col
ored citizen would have, however, the
same right to vote, or to be voted for as q
Representative. From this it will result
that the right of suffrage will remain as at
present. The civil and legal equality OF
all the citizens will be unchanged, but
"the solid South" instead of representing
those added members, may lose the repre-
sentation of those whom it has bulldozed
into submission. The Picay'rne admits
that
The Democracy can not succeed without
the electoral vote of the South as it now L.
and that fact alone guarantees the black
man his political rights.
It has even confessed:
II in the last general election the South
had been confined to the ante bellum vote
Mr.. Hayes would have won an easy vic
tory.
From these quotations it will be appar.
ent that the Democracy has succeeded in
so multiplying and perverting the suffrage
of the colored citizens as to insist upon il
as an established fact. 1t opposed this
right heretofore. Why the changer Be
cause that political element, which, lef
free, would have opposed Democracy, hai
now been subjugated to the viii o
the Democracy. 1t is boosted tina
through the representative powers of thu
colored citizens, the Democracy can con
troll the Federal government. It is con
! fessed that but for the admission and ad
dition of the colored representation, ''Mr
! hayes would have won an easy victory.
Not satisfied, however, with this triumph
the Democracy calls upon the colore'
citizens to certify that this has been dom
with their entire approval, and claims tn
: right to represent this vote by virtue o
this conquest Of an intimidated and sub
{ jugated people. To this the colored citi
Gems will never consent. They know tina
} the White Lacquer is ambushed behin'
the conservative so-called, and will CLAIM
: to WELD the whole colored representa-
J ton against the rights and interests q
: the colored citizens The right of col
/ Grad auffraoa vvilI than he oonfroIlad I,