Litchfield enquirer., 1879-03-13
WHOLE NO. 2753

Will ne CnaIe lneuectuaiLy WHcu 1G 10 AO" Aol SO | ly for them.
 "In his perplexity over the sudden change | in the vote of the negro, Mir. Blaine has for gotten that, at this stage of it's progress the negro vote cannot intelligently direct itself. It must and will follow some leader. New. up | to 1876 the Republican party, armed with all the authority of the federal government, sup | piled those leaders. They were strangers in
 the stat they governed. The moment that the compact vote upon which their power rest
 ed was divided, they abandoned their places,
 and in almost every case left the state ln whic9 they had ruled. The great mass of colored l voters was left without guides. In many of | the largest counties, where their majority was absolute. they were not only not organized,
 but there was not interest enough to print g
 Republican ticket. The weapon of defence
 which had been given to the negro was thrown
 away by his leaders in, their flight, and MT.
 Blaine can scarcely complain ii 1t was picked 1 up by the Democrats. In saying this do not wish to provoke or renew useless and lrrltat-
 ing controversies but Mir. Blaine's position is,
 that not only the negro ought not to be dis
 franchised, but that such question could nev- CT have suggested itself but for an illegal con Itrol of the negro vote by southern Democrats. | My view is that, while the enfranchisement of
 the negro was political necessity, 1t could not be effected without subjecting the country
 to such dangerous political alterations as we
 have experienced that wise man would
 have foreseen them and that in fact, they
 have been less than could reasonably have
 been anticipated; that the ballot ln the hands | of the negro has been protection and an edu- cator: that with it he has been stronger and
 safer in all his rights than the Chinese have | been in California without it and that the problems it raised are steadily and without danger solving themselves through the process
 of local self-government.
 'sWhen Mr. Blaine admits that disfranchise-
 ment is impossible and that the ballot has
 been, in spite of all drawbacks, benefit to
 the negro. he really proves that there is no or ganic question affecting great national interests l but simply the subordinate question, How
 rapidly is the ballot fitting the negro for the | full enjoyment of his citizenship, and what | influence does his vote exercise upon the su- premacY of one party or the other in national polticsP This latter may be an interesting question, but not one which should absorb ei- ther sound national sentiment or other na- tional interests do net propose to discuss 1t. | I am of the opinion that to make the negro 1 free citizen it was necessary first to take him | from his master. Then it became necessary to take him from the party which claimed his | vote as absolutely as his master had claimed | his labor The next step will be to take him | as a class from either party and show him to differ and divide just as white men do.
 "Whenever-and the time is not distant 1 whenever political issues arise which divide l the white men of the South, the negro will di- vide too The time will then have come when l he cannot act against the white race as body or with the white race as body. He will 1 have to choose fer himself and the white race, divided politically, will want him to divide. l The use of his vote will then be the exerclse. of his individual intelligence, and he will find friends on all sides willing and anxious to en- tighten and influence him, and to sustain him | in his decisions. .2 s"The question, then, recurs-conceding, for | the sake of argument, that in the South, pollt- | ical rule represents not the will of mere num-
 bers, but the intellectual culture, the moral r strength. the material interest, the skilled la bor, the useful capital of that entire section,
 as we'll as it's political experience--is not this
 result exactly what the intelligence, character | and property of the country are striving to ef- | feet in every Congressional district in the Un- | ion, and is it not perfectly legitimate result | of placing the ballot in the hands of a popula- | tion unfamiliar with it's use, and who are pc culiarly susceptible to the influences which property and brains have always exerted ln popular government
 t'I anticipate the answer; it Is, that the
 property and intelligence of the other sections seek to control the votes of the masses by methods that are legitimate and peaceful, while | the southern whites have achieved their power by means which are unlawful and unjust. So | far have to some extent, for the sake of ar- gument, conceded the assumption that the ne- gro vote has been subjected to the fOrcible | control of the white race, but that deny | Reference has been made to the great change | which the election returns show in the negro vote throughout the South. The phenomenon | is easily explained. Let any intelligent north ern man review the history of the state-goV- ernments of the South for the last ten years under the Republican rule-their gross and shameless dishonesty, their exOrbitant taxa | tion, their reckless expenditure, their oppres- | sion of all native interest, the social agonles | through which they have forced all that was
 good and pure to pass as through hery fur mace the character of the men-many ot | them they have placed in power; and then
 say if such state of things in northern or western state would not have been sure and
 natural precursor of Republican defeat, so absolute and complete that the very name Of | the party would have become in that state a name of scorn and reproach. Then why | should not that have occurred in the South | Are we to assume that the black race have neither instinct nor reason-have no sense, no | intelligence, no conscience, no lndependence
 that in every southern state the thralldom ot |
 abandoned by them, is so unquestioning and abiect that no amount of misrule can cut him loose from them or teach him the advantage | of a more natural and wholesome political al-
 liance? To reason thus is simply to say that
 the negro is unfit for suffrage, and to surrender l the argument to those who hold that he ought
 to be disfranchised. ,.. .. .......
 'sBut this is not true. There are many hon. est, intelligent and independent men among | .k, ;,, There | are thousands of them who own property, who cultivate their own lands, who have taxes to pay, and who appreciate their vital interests in good government This change in his po-
 htical relations which has been the subject of
 so much incredulous comment is the legitimate
 Jesuit of the experience through which he has gone.
 ''So far from proving his weak subordina- tion to hostile influence, it demonstrates | what Mr. Blaine says, that the ballot box in- deed educated him to understand his own in- terest, and that he has learned to use it as an | instrument to protect his own rights To in- | terfere with such a result because it does not | square with the necessities or the ambitions of | this or that party seems to me to be in direct | contradiction to what has been suggested by l Mr. Blaine himself. He says eThe one sure mode to remand the states that rebelled against l the Union to their autonomy was to give sutf-
  | to self f-government the evolution of the proper remedies for whatever of evil or error may at
 tend the working out of this grave and critical experiment" ..-arss ... -' u4 ..4. Mason was an unsuccessful grocer in Little
 ridge Mich He had been a Methodist but
 bankruptcy in business led him to carelessness
 about religion, although he was exceedingly l superstitious, He had read of the devil buy !. ~,.A1 | q,
 satisfactory price, he would sell his own He
 wrote out a formal sffer, the purport of which
 was that he was to be given twenty years of
 wealth and then his soul was to go into the
 devils possession. This document he suspen-
 ded over fire, while he performed incanta-
 tions of his own invention. Although several
 weeks have elapsed he has not gained wealth.
 nor received any intimation that the bargain
 has been closed. Probably the evil one thought he was sure of his man at a cheaper