The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-09-23

plished the exclusion Of Dakota IL obtained
by the Acknowledgement of 6, 900, 900 of the
Southern population, thus enabling them
to cast from thirty-f five to forty votes in
Congress to which they have no moral title,
nor legal title, nor constitutional title, and
no title at all except that which is founded
upon force and fraud. l know 1t is regard
| cd by a large number as useless, if not un-
wise, to continue the discussion Of the
| Southern vote. But In no feature con-
nected with that vote can the end be SO de-
| plorable and destructive as that the whole
nation should acquiesce in the outrage. /
have only the voice and influence of pri-
vate citizen, but as long as / have that
will protest against q wrong which not
merely blots out all the rights of the colored
men, but absolutely seizes the votes to
which they are entitled, and with that
wrongfully acquired electoral strength con-
trolls the legislative power of the United
| States. Cheers and cries of "good." If
the matter involved only the exclusion of
tho colored man from the ballot, and thus
from the highest right of citizenship, it
would surely be bad enough, but he is
marked with the possession of the ballot
and his electoral strength is turned 10 the
support of the party whose success is his
lasting injury. A Southern gentleman
with whom have long held personal re-
lations of kindness, said to me, with a
candor which was as surprising as his
lack of perception of the enorm-
ity which he was apparently indorsing,
that in recent election in Mississippi and
also in South Carolina, the colored men,
who are in a large majority in both States,
were actually we'll organized for the cleo
ton, and would have carried it but for the
| great activity and vigilance of the white
men at the last moment. / said to him,
"Did these colored men intend any violence
| or fraud?" "Oh no." says he, "but they
would have outvoted us if they had the
numbers, and it took great exertion on our
part to outvote Them" He was apparently
quite unconscious of the magnitude of the
crime which was involved in the destruc-
ton of the electoral rights of an entire
race, and yet this incident shows the extent
to which this disregard of natural and legal
rights has proceeded in the South. The
refusal to allow the colored men to vote,
and the cool appropriation of their cleo
toral strength by the white men, has become
the common custom and the common law
of the South, and will remain so until
some great moral shock shall awaken those
people to the enormity a the offense. 1t
will read very strangely in the future history
of the United States, that minority of the
white citizens of the country could neu-
tralize and destroy the franchise of 6,000,-
600 colored people. seize their represent
ative and electoral strength, and control
the administration of the National Govern
ment against large majority of the un-
doubted legal voters. And yet that is what
is going on in the South, and what has
gone on in the South ever since 1877. Ac-
quiescence in its practice does not change
its character, but only involves others in
the moral responsibility attending so grave
an offense. 1t is an extraordinary fact that
the wealthiest, the most educated States OF
the Union quietly acquiesce in 1he wrong
of giving the white men of Mississippi and
Carolina double the political power in the
country that any equal number of Northern
white men possess. Government, by the
free suffrage of the people, proceeds upon
the assumption that the voting shall be
legal and fair. When it becomes corrupted,
either under the domination of violence or
through the influence of bribery, the whole
republican system is impregnated with a
deadly poison, which, if long continued,
will sap its life. Applause. And yet
we find many gentlemen in the Northern
States Justly and keenly alive to the evil
influence of bribery, even in the smallest
and most indirect manner, setting out to
check it by the most stringent legislation,
and yet constantly turning deaf ear when
it is suggested to them that the corruption Of
the ballot in certain Southern States is
chronic aud universal, working out results
that utterly destroy the principle of ma
jority government.
Let me state the case in an aiithmetical
way If you deprive the colored people of
the right of suffrage and exclude them from
the basis of representation, the Republican
party would have had majority in Con-
gress at any time within the last ten years,
and majority of the electoral strength of
the country; or, if you secure to the color
ed men perfect freedom of suffrage and in
clude them in the basis of representation,
the Republican party would. readily have
controlled Congress for the same period.
But Democratic success has been attained
by including them in the basis of repre-
sentation, and excluding them from the en-
joyment of suffrage, thus appropriating
the electoral strength of the colored men
for the sole benefit of the Democratic par
tv. When the old Scotch covenanter was
stripped of all power to change the current
of events against which he decreed, he still
had the power to give his testimony and to
enter protest. For myself, / said two years
ago, and l say now, regardless of its popu-
larity or its unpopularity, looking only to
the injustice which Expresses and the
wrong which outrages, that l will steadily
give my testimony and enter my protest
against it as rank and odious injustice
to the colored and white citizens alike.
1 protest against it as utterly destruc-
tive to republican government. 1 know
that l am thus protesting against con-
solidated power in the North, which gets
the advantage, aud the profit and the gain
of this unjust aggregation of political pow
er in the hands of Southern white men.
When the Southern States can say: ave
are solid; we have the entire white vote of
our States, aud we have seized the colored
vote; we offer you "A partnership; We offer
to any minority of the Northern States that
will join us in the complete government of
the country" the temptation, say, is very
strong. 1t imposes upon the party that en-
tertains proposition for such an alliance,
the duty of carrying but three or four States
in the North, and, when three or four
States in the North find that they can ce-
ment the alliance, the temptation becomes
so strong that poor human nature is not
equal to resistance. Thus, in addition to
the power of the white man of the South,
they get a portion of the North committed
by all the instincts of self interest, to per-
petuate the odious destruction of free suf-