Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1888-12-29
AL FducatIonaI QuaItleatIOn.

will continue to agltate It, we must
meet the issue forced upon us,
squarely, resolutely and without
hinchlng so that if further legislation
on the subject be imminent, wisdom
and prudence should be invoked.
The South is not responsible for the
precipitaie and unwise action which
conferred the elective franchise upon
the recently emancipated freedmen
and only voted for the constitutional
amendment by which it was confer
red under duress, since when she
has endeavored TO work out her des-
tiny under the great load of igno-
rance which has been imposed.
The scheme of reconstruction in
this particular, received its first
severe blow from Gen. Grant, who,
while President, in one of his mes
sages suggested Enthusiastically the
plan of disfranchisement of the
negro or the undoing of the rash act
of enfranchisement, which at this
late day has been seriously consider
ed by some of the most radical of
the Republican party.
We are of those who believe such
step cannot be safely taken with
out establishing a precedent danger
GUS to our form of government,
which at some future day, far or
near, would establish the fact that
might is right, principle which
breeds revolution and its the source
of streams Of blood. Not that the
negro race would feel and appreciate
the deprivation, inasmuch as people
owing TO their previous condition
and want of education, are incapable
of understanding the full value and
responsibility incident to the fran
chise.
If then it be impolitic and unwise
to deprive the negroes of their votes
because they are negroes and the
trouble yet remains the plan of edu
cational qualification next presents
itself, surrounded, We confess, with
many, though not lnsurmountable
difficulties.
Right at the threshold the South
would demand that no discrimination
against the negro should be made in
restricting the franchise 70 an edu-
cational basis. Charged as she is
with all sorts Vi outrages against the
negro, her sense of justice would cry
out against the wrong which depriv-
ed hlm Of his vote, because he could
neither read nor write, and yet grant
it to the foreigner recently landed
upon these shores as laborers in the
North, who cannot even speak the
language, and who perhaps comes
with a mind imbued with all kinds of
anarchists schemes. relying upon
]
dynamite as the leveller of all dis
tlnctions and the force by which to
arrive at power.
The negroes of the South are as a
class law abiding and kindly dispos-
ed, a people among whom Gen sher-
mans "torch and dagger" would
fined no place. They live peaceably
and contentedly with the white man
where unlnterfered with; they need
education and encouragement, which
they are renewing at the hands of
white men literally and generously /;
they have their own schools and
teachers because each race prefers
its own; they are uneducated as a
class but are being educated as
rapidly as a race can be, and when
educated are capable of exercising
the franchise judiciously.
In all parts of the South negroes
are performing their duty satisfac-
toriIy and eapably in public offices
when educated and fitted for the
position, commanding the respect of
all when earned.
Education is what they need as a
class; education is what every citizen
needs to qualify him to vote intel
| ligently, whether he be white or
black.
The rule should hold good in the
North, where thousands vote upon
taking the simple oath that they are
attached to and will support the con-
sti'ution of the United States, when
in fact they are ignorant of what is
meant by the constitution, and can
not read a line of it.
If the educational qualification is
to be the solution of the negro prob
lem; let it 60 further and solve the
whole problem in its determination
as to who is a qualified voter, over
the whole Union.
The color line should not be drawn
here lest the grossest act Of injustice
be perpetrated against an unoffend-
ing race.
States will, Of course, determine
the right to vote within their own
State lines in matters pertaining to
the Commonwealth, but if the FEEDER
IL government, in its zeal to equalize
the rights Of all the people in cleo
tons for Federal offices, desires to