The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1879-12-10
FOR THE CLARION
Shall we have Constitutional Con
vention

4 proposition for calling constitutional
Convention will doubtless be presented at
the approaching session of the Legislature,
and as no more important subject can posi-
bly, engage the attention of that body, it is
to be hoped that the members may approve
its discussion, free from all prejudices, lay
ing aside all personal or partizan bias, and
resolved TO dispose of it with an eye single
to the best interests of the State. | have
given the subject much thought and some
investigation, and would like through your
columns to give to the public, and especially
10 the members Of the Legislature, the
result of my reflections. am opposed to
the calling ola Convention, because l be-
lieve that there is only one good thing that
could compensate for the many evils insep-
arabic from such step, and believe that
that good thing Is at present impossible of
accomplishment.
If the whole framework of our State
government could be made less Democratic
and more restrictive; if the right of suffrage
could be largely curtailed by the require
ment of property or educational qualifica~
tions ifthe number of officers to be elected
by the people could be made less, the
duration of terms heightened, and larger
powers be intrusted to fewer hands, | would
earnestly advocate the calling of a Consti-
tutional Convention.
BY nature and by lifelong training am
a Democrat in the broadcast sense of the
word. l believe that government for the
people can best be administered by the
people, and with a voting population of
courage. virtue and intelligence, the largest
powers possible should be exercised directly
by the people themselves If on the con
trary majority, or even Il very large
minority of the suffragans be timid, ignorant,
without property and without the self
denial necessary to acquire it, a government
resting ON popular elections can be preserved
and made tolerable only by large delegations
of power to public officers who shall be held
to accountability by stringent and rigid
penalties. Give me Il brave, virtuous and
intelligent population and | would confide
to them the amplest powers. Give me a
seryile race too ignorant to know and too
timid to assert their rights or perform their
tions can be preserved only by confiding
large powers To those whom the people shall
select as their rulers and by Furnishing with
untiinching severity any dereliction of duty
in those who are selected.
BY the will of our couquerors the negroes
of Mississippi have been enfranchised and
their right of suffrage secured by the federal
Constitution. They constitute a large
majority of our population, and there is not
tI,.,A TIT, rI,,ro IL, ,,,,t
hold the balance of power if there be division
among the whites. Never before i'll the
history of civilization was there SO much of
poverty. ignorance, cowardice and venality
poured into the ballot-bOx. Can decent,
orderly and wise government be maintained
based upon such ballots? 1t is a problem
which makes the statesman ponder and the
patriot grow pale and one which the history
of the future alone can answer. One thing,
however, is certain. 1t cannot be done by
force or fraud, by intimidation or trickery.
\ cruel necessity may for time justify or
excuse such practices, but rest assured that
the society that undertakes to live by such
means must ere long encounter a day of
terrible reckoning. Whether it could be
done even by such notifications i'm our
Constitution as above suggested is doubtful.
But | have no idea that any such changes
in our organic law can be effected in the
present temper Of the public mind, and be-
cause | so believe, and because deem these
the only changes sufficiently beneficial to
compensate for the many inseperable from
remodeling of our Constitution, / am
opposed to the assembage Cf a Convention
The popular clamor now is all for a more
Democratic Constitutional officers to be
elective by the people and everything that
looks to lodging power in the hands of
officials to be swept away.
The utmost that could be hoped from
Convention now assembled would be the
possible eXaction ola poll-tax as a pre-re-
quislte to voting. This if, it could be done
ut all, can be as well accomplished by
amendment as by new Constitutions But
doubt whether such Il proposition would
be adopted at the ballot box, whether sub
mltted as separate measure, or as part of
Il new Constitution. | doubt whether it
could be carried in all the white counties of
the State. feel sure that it could not in
the black ones. There are in every county
hundreds of white men who never pay
poll-taX and never intend to pay one. These
men would tight the proposition as fiercely
as the negroes. Once unite them with the
negroes, give them slrewd demagogues to
lead them and to pander to their preiudices,
and farewell to that solidarity of the whites
upon which our salvation depends From
such caucus l shrink with dread. The
framed a new Constitution-which by the
way was, done almost solely to get a chance
TO scale their public debt, which the old
Constitution torbade-werc exceedingly de-
slrous of inserting this poll-tax provision
III 1t, but after much discussion were
afraid to try it. They believed that it
would defeat the entire instrument, and it
was only by emitting it that they ensured its
acceptance.
Should . new Constitution, with such
provision, be submitted here to the popuIar
vote, with our white people, disorganized as
they now are, i believe it would be defeat
ed, or, If carried at all, it would be after a
canvass which would array our people in
two bitterly antagonistic classes.
All amendments to our present Constitu- I
tion other than those which look to limita-
tlons upon the right of suffrage and restric-
lions upon the universally and frequency
of popular elections, are of trivial impor-
tance. Let us examine some of the obiec- T,
lions to that instrument most frequently !
urged.
! pass ny az unworthy the consideration
Of a patriot or statesman the idea that we
should overturn it because it was framed
by the Radicals. In the first place, by the /.
of all the distinctively Radical
provisions as first proposed, and by the
adoption of several amendments since. the /
instrument Is by no means the same as
originally framed. Secondly, the controll- I
ing consideration should be not who made
the Constitution, but what sort of a Con I
stitution is it. Now the truth is that four
htths Of our present Constitution is copied
Ger 6dttm from the Constitution of 1892 and
that two-thirds of its provisions are to be
ipund IN the Constitutions of every State /
in the Union. The further truth is that of
the fifteen or twenty changes introduced
by the present Constitution, a large major
Ity are most wise and excellent provisions.
a few are matters of indifference, and two
or three only are bad or of doubtful utility.
These propositions propose, with your
consent to demonstrate in the next issue of
your paper and then to give some of the
many reasons which seem to me most potent
calling Constitutional Convention.