Litchfield enquirer., 1878-09-05
WOMAN-SUFFRAGE AS JUDGED BY
 THE WORKING OF ME- y{ GRO-SUFFRAGE.

= GRO.STFFRAGE GOiTfG G1 N
 A falsesprinciple wrought into real life al- ways works itself out in disaster Nemesis watches i Its malign nature will out, re- lentlesslyb Its working is like that of demon- iacal possession; the dispossession comes with outcry and convulsions.
 Such is the naked fact in the issue of our experiment in giving the ballot to the negro of the plantation. We put the most delicate blossom Uf civilization into the hands of a herd of Ignorance and brutishness. We up- lit menko the ultimate night of republican freedom whose donkeys knew nearly asmuch of it's responsibilities as they did. We drew from thg rice-felds to the polls men whe in some Instances deposited there, circus bills, hotel dipner-bills and copies of the Lords prayer.a We threw open halls of legislation which ne finished culture of the land had gracedssto men who not only could neither read nor write, but whose guffaws, in derision of parliamentary order, as they sat with feet higher than their heads, betrayed scarcely more ef intelligence than the bray of an ass. The Rhetts and Legares and Hamptons and Esal Razs of great state, have been succeed ed in part by aSanbo and Pompey and Cesar and Jerusalem.
 The issue, to the most sanguine believers in the necessity of the experiment, must seem to be dead failure. Not only has it preceded bad legislation and repudiated debts, but the fundamental law of representative govern ment-that by which majorities rule-has been abrogated by force. The process has been so revolutionary, that we have coined a new word to express it. "Bulldoze" will live long in our language in token of the wretched business.
 Political partisans may gloss it over as they please, yet few non-partisans in the land doubt that minorities rule today in South Carolina and Louisiana, and probably in three other Southern States Governors Chamberlain and Packard are de jure chief magistrates of their respective Commonwealths. They have the sympathy of thousands who feel compelled by necessity which knows not law, to SUD- port the policy which disowns them. Their rivals govern only by the right of usurpation which in theory has surplanted republican government by tyranny. The same revolu- tion extended through the country would make every State government despotism, and the form of representative rule a farce
 Yet we yield to it as necessity. A neces- slty which is above law, is the issue of the first false move, which gave the franchise to men who were neither fitted for it, nor able even to understand it Through no fanlt of theirs-poor souls !-they were lifted to an eminence which they had never known enough even to ask for. The sympathy of the best minds of the nation must be with them, rather than their lordly superiors. They have done body could have expectd to do, if suddenly and volcanically tossed into responsibilities so vastly above their education and their hiS- tory.
 But it is no kindness to them to suffer our comparison to blind us to the facts of their condition, which both they and we must now face together. The facts of the situation have driven our theories out Of sight. We cannot help seeing there are things in the ad- ministration of States which are more potent than numders. We have te count other things than heads, white or black We must confess that intelligence, culture, knowledge of the art of government, the habit of rule, pride of ancestry and historic prestige, have more real power in ruling great State, than the brute force of hands. The ''bayonets" which ''think' beat back thrice the number of those which do not think. Upset society to-day by plunging these thinking forces underneath, and heaving ignorance and inherited debase- ment and tradition of slavery to the top, and the first thing we learn is that society will not stay upset. It inevitably turns over again into it's natural condition, stands on it's natural feet, and erects again it's natural head, let the majority of the bits of paper, in or out of the ballot box, count for whom they may. The head comes uppermost, let the hands do what they will.
 Color and hair and nose and lips have noth- ing to do with such revolution and counter revolution. Any race in South Carolina, fresh from the auction-block and the lash of the rice field, could no more govern an intelligent and cultured minority, heirs to the history of South Carolina than a herd of buffaloes could govern Minnesota. To this fact of political science our whole theory of govern ment by majorities has been forced to succumb in day. Think what we may of it, the fact is there, and our theory is nowhere Such is the exorcism of the body polite, by which it rlds itself of tampering with the franchise which was against nature. The hopeless despotism under which New York is drifting towards bankruptcy, is only another fruit of the same reckless extension of Suffrage at the North Such silent revolutions are mightiest issues of apparently smallest forces. They resemble that in which an ounce of water, in midwinter, may rend assunder tons weight of granite in night
 Where now is the parallel between negro Suffrage at the South, and the proposed Suf- frage of Woman? In respect to intelligence and culture and their perogatives, it does not exist at all. Whether it exist in respect to the instinct and capacity of government, may be an open question. But the parallel is clear in this, which is the ultimate fact in both cas- es, that the ballot is given, or supposed to be given, not to exceptional classes, few in num- Der, but to the half of the population, which has no physical power to defend it They can neither take it by force to defend it. They can neither take it by force, nor hold it if as- sailed by force.
 ''Who would be free, themselves must strike the
 blow"
 A principle of political destiny is expressed in these words, than which gravitation is not more sure. Liberty, such as is involved in the gift of Suffrage, is impossible, on any large scale, to race or nation or tribe or class, which has not power to take the right if it is right, and to hold it against all aggressors. This is the secret, back of all other causes of the fail ure of negro Suffrage at the South Excess of numbers, by few thousands or tens of thousands, is of no account where the cultured brain, the heirloom of centuries, is all on the side of minority. The majority, ln receiving the ballot, received an elephant. They did not know what to do with it, and in the very first real conflict about it, they could not defend it by force of arms. Such majority is not fit- ted for the ballot, nor is it their right in any sense which implies blessing in it, till they reach stage of civilization in which they can not be ''bulldozed" out of it.
 Before the war, when servile instruction was threatened, the Southern planter used to smile, saying: ''One gentleman is match for three negroes" So he was, so long as the tra- ditions of free race backed him up, and the traditions of 8 slave. race weighted the negro down. Why did Governor Chamberlain call on the national government for troops to exc cute the will of the legal majority of South Carolina? With twenty thousand able-bodied majority at his beck, why did he not summon them to execute their own will in the defense of their own rights and hs ? Governor Rice would have done that in Massachusetts Gov ernor Robinson would have done it in New York The Governor of Ohio proclaimed the natural law of State Government, when he was importuned, in the midst of the late labor strikes, to telegraph to Washington for troops, and replied ''I will not ask for one bayonet from the President, till every loyal citizen of Ohio is whipped" Why did not Governors Chamberlain and Packard act on the same the ory?
 They dared not do it ! As wise statesmen and humane men, they could not do it. They knew that would mean war of races They knew that in such a war the weaker race must