The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1881-03-12
SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION.

The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in
question, and a frank statement of the issues may
aid its solution. 1t is alleged that in many COM
munites negro citizens are practically denied the
freedom of the ballot. In so far the truth of
this allegation is admitted, it is answered that in
many places honest local government is impossi-
BILE if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed
to vote. These are grave allegations. So far as
the latter is true it is the only paliation that
be offered for opposing the freedom of the ballot.
Bad local government is certainly a great evil,
which ought to be prevented but to violate the
freedom and sanctity of the suffrage is more than
evil-t is a crime, which, if persisted in, will
destroy the government itself. Suicide is not
remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to
compass the death of the king it should be count
ed no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign
power and stiae its voice.
1t has been said that unsettled questions have
no pity for the repOse OF nations. 1t should be
said with the utmost emphasis, that this question
of the suffrage will never give repose safety to
the States, or to the nation until each within its
own jurisdiction makes and keeps the ballot free
and pure by the strong sanctions of the law but
the danger which arises from ignorance in the
voter cannot be denied. 1t covers a field far
wider than that of negro suffrage, and the present
condition of that race. 1t is danger that turks
and hides in the sources and fountains of power.
We have no STANDARD by which TO measure the
lHdP bhy ue pTOuBnl upon us Dy lbHO-
rance and vice in the citizens, when joined to cor
ruption and fraud In tbs suffrage,
The voters of the Union who make and pnWake
constitutions, and upon whose will hangs the des-
TIMES of our government, can transmit their SUI
preme authority to no successor save the coming
generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of SOW
eregn power. If that generation comes to its in
heritance, blinded by ignorance and corrupted by
vice. the fall of the republic will be certain, and
remediess.
The census has already sounded the alarm in
the appalling figures which mark how dangerously
high the tide of illiteracy has risen among our
voters and their children.
To the South this question is of supreme impor
lance but the responsibility for the existence of
slavery did not rest upon the South aioas
The nation itself is responsible for the extension
of the suffrage, and is under special obligations TO
aid in removing the illiteracy which it has added
to the voting population. For the North and
South alike there is but one remedy. All the con-
stitutional power of the nation and of the States
and all the volunteer forces of the people should
be summoned to meet this danger by the saving
influence Of universal education. 1t is the high
privilege and sacred duty Of those now living to
educate their SUCCESSORS, and fit them by intelli-
gence and virtue for the inheritance that awaits
them.
In this beneGcent work sections and races should
be forgotten and partisanship should be unknown
Let our people find new meaning in the Divine
oracle which declares that 'litte child shall lead
them," for little children will soon control the
destinies of the republic.