New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-06-30
FREE TRADE WITHOUT FREE ELECTIONS.

FREE TRADE WITHOUT FREE ELECTIONS.
The free-trade assault upon the industries
of the country is led by a Southern oligarchy
which only requires two votes in the senate
in order to be in complete possession of the
Government. This is fact of paramount i'm
portance which should not be lost sight of in
the Republican canvass. The Democratic
President, who is appealing boldly for the sup
port Of Northern Free Traders, owes his cleo
ton to the notification of the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments in the Southern States.
Five of the seven Darl1-Lantern confedcrates
who produced the Mills bill represent Southern
constituencies. The majority of the House
which stand behind that measure and are fore
ing it to final vote are from the same section
and hold their seats by virtue Of the uncon-
stitutional suppression of the negro vote.
Representative Kennedy, in one of the most
powerful speeches OF the tariff debate, demon
strated that the total vote of Georgia's ten
districts was less by 10000 than was cast in
his own Ohio district. Those ten districts,
carried by illegal and unfair elections and in
ruthless disregard of the Constitutional Amend
ments, furnish ten Freetrade votes for the Mills
bill in place OF Mr.. Kennedys single vote for
Protection. While the negro vote is suppressed
in the Southern States, the negro population
forms the basis of Confederate domination in
the Electoral College and in the House. The
strength of the free-trade cause is thus
grounded upon disfranchisement and usurpa-
ton of power.
This subject is discussed with fairness and
force by Senator Chandler in the current num-
Der of "Thc Forum" In his historical out
line of reconstruction legislation he shows that
the political effect of emancipation was to in
crease the power of the rebelious States
Whereas before the War Southern representa-
ton in the House and in the Electoral College
had been based upon the whites and three
ffths of the blacks, it is now grounded upon
the entire population. The Senator's estimate
of the representation to which threeffths of
the colored population are entitled is twenty
four, and that of the remaining two-fifths six
teen. The South in a Presidential election
and in O free-trade division has forty votes
based on negro population. These forty votes
elected Cleveland and are all pledged FOR the
Mills bill YET nowhere in the Southern States
have the negroes the free and untrammelled
right of suffrage guaranteed by the Constitu-
ton. and nowhere is adequate assurance given
that the votes which they may be allowed to
cast will be fairly counted At least nineteen
of those forty electoral votes would have gone
to Mr.. Blaine in 1884 if there had been unre-
stricted freedom Of suffrage and honest cleo
tions. II constitutional guarantees had been
regarded. ten of those forty votes, now repre-
senting Acknowledgement and fraud, would have
made the House Republican and protected the
industries of the Nation against free-trade
II any Northerner questions the statement
that the rebelious South is now in the saddle
and preparing to ride rough-shod over Amer
lean industries, let him read the sketches of the
National legislators in the official records.
Eighty mine Confederate soldiers now in Con-