Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-12-20

) Democracy of the South seized seventy
: of the seventy-three districts, and thus
secured Democratic majority in the
next House of Representatives Thus
it appears that throughout the States
that formed the late Confederate Gov
ernment 10000 whites-the very peo-
pie that rebelled against the Union
are enabled to elect Representative
in Congress, while in the loyal States
it requires 1872, 900 of the white people
who fought for the Union to elect a
Representative. In levying every tax,
therefore, in making every appropria-
tion of money, in fixing every line of
public policy, in decreeing what shall
be the fate and fortune of the Republic,
the Confederate soldier South is ena-
bled to cast a vote that is twice as pow
crful and twice as influential as the vote
of the Union soldier North.
But the white men of the South did
not acquire and do not hold this su-
perior power by reason of law or JUS
tice, but in disregard and defiance of
both. The fourteenth amendment to
the Constitution was expected to be
and was designed to be preventive
and corrective of all such possible
abuses. The reading of the clause ap-
plicable to the case is instructive and
suggestive. Hear it,
| Representatives shall be apportioned among
the several States according to their respec-
tive numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each State, excluding Indians not
| taxed. But when the right to vote at any
| election for the choice Of electors for Presi-
| dent and Vice-President of the United States,
Representatives in Congress, the executive
| and judicial officers of State, or the mem
| bers Of the Legislature thereof, is denied to
| any of the male inhabitants of such State, be.
ing twenty-one years of age and citizens Of
| the United States or in any way abridged, eX-
cept for participation in rebellion, or 9TH
er crime, the basis of representation therein
shall be reduced in the proportion which the
number of such male citizens shall bear to the
| whole number of male citizens tWenty-one
years of age in such State
The patent, undeniable intent of this
provision was that if any class of vot-
ers were denied or in any way abridged
in their right of suffrage, then the
class so denied or abridged should
not be counted in the basis
of representations; or, in other words.
that no State or States should gain
large increase of representation
in Congress by reason of counting any
class of population not permitted to
take part in electing such representa-
tives. But the construction given to
this provision is that before any forfeit
ure of representation can be enforced
the denial or abridgement of suffrage
must be the result of law specifically
enacted by the State. Under this con-
struction every negro voter may have
his suffrage absolutely denied or fatally
abridged by the violence, actual or
threatened, of irresponsible mobs, or by
frauds and deceptions of State officers
from the Governor down to the last
election clerk, and then, unless some
State law can be shown that authorizes
the denial or abridgement, the State
escapes all penalty or peril of reduced
representation. This construction may
be upheld by the courts, ruling on the
letter of the law, (which killeth," but
the spirit of justice cries aloud against
the evasive and atrocious conclusion
that deals out oppression to the inno-
cent and shields the guilty from the le-
gitimate consequences of willful trans
gression.
The colored citizen is thus most un-
happily situated; his right of suffrage
is but hollow mockery; it holds to his
ear the word of promise but breaks it |
always to his hope, and he ends only in |
being made the unwilling instrument
of increasing the political strength of
that party from which he received ever |
Tightening fetters when he was slave |
and contemptuous refusal of civil rights |
since he was made free. He resembles |
indeed those unhappy captives in the |
East who deprived of their birthright |
are compelled to yield their streng 9Th
to the unbuilding of the monarch from |
whose tyrannies they have most to fear, |
and to fight against the power from
which alone deliverance might be ex-
pected. The franchise intended for
the shield and defense of the negro has
been turned against him and against
his friends, and has vastly increased |
the power of those from whom he has
nothing to hope and everything to dread. |
The political power thus appropri-
ated by Southern Democrats by reason
of the negro population amounts to
thirty-tive Representatives in Congress.
1t is massed almost solidly and offsets
the great State of New York; or Penn
sylvania and New Jersey together; or
the whole of New England; or Ohio
and Indiana united; or the combined
strength of Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas,
California, Nevada, Nebraska, Colora-
do and Oregon. The seizure of this
power is wanton usurpation; it is fla
grant outrage; it is violent perver-
sion of the whole theory of Re-
publican Government. 1t inures sole
ly to the present advantage and yet, /
believe, to the permanent dishonor of
the Democratic party. 1t is by reason
of this trampling down of human
rights, this ruthless seizure of un-
lawful power that the Democratic
party holds the popular branch
of Congress to-day and will in less
than ninety days have control of this
body also, thus grasping the entire legis-
lative department of the Government
through the unlawful capture of the
Southern States. If the prescribed
vote of the South were cast as its law
full owners desire, the Democratic party
could not gain power. Nay, if it were
not counted on the other side against
the instincts and the interests, against
the principles and the prejudices of its
lawful owners Democratic success
would be hopeless. 1t is not enough,
then, for modern Democratic tactics
that the negro vote shall be silenced;
the demand goes farther and insists
that it shall be counted on their side,
that all the Representatives in Con-
gress and all the Presidential Electors
apportioned by reason of the negro
vote shall be so cast and so governed
as to insure Democratic success-re-
gardless of justice, in defiance of law
And this injustice is wholly unpro-
voked. | doubt if it be in the power of
the most searching investigation to
show that in any Southern State during
the period of Republican control any
legal voter was ever debarred from the
ireest exercise of his suffrage Even
the revenges which would have leaped
into life with many who despised the