Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-06-20

HERALD will be sold at fifteen cents q
copy, and except to news-dealers no
reduction will be made on that figure
A Peculiar Republican Departure.
For all good or ill involved in colored
suffrage the Republican party is dis
tinctly responsible. There have been
obi. .ctions to bestowing the suffrage upon
many millions of lately emancipated serfs
which were absolutely irrespective of the
color line. Very few people of sense
would object to the exercise by an intel
ligent man of the right to vote simply
because he happened to be black. There
are social features to the matter, involv-
ing confusion of the hue of the issue,
which will probably always make mis-.
cegenation in the United States, or in
any other country in which the colored
man is 30 numerous as he is in this,
highly and insuperably Objectionable.
But on the bald proposition of allowing
an intelligent colored man to vote, even
amongst Democrats of what our esteemed
friends of the Republican party delight
to call the Bourbon" variety, there
would be little dissidence in this day
and generation. The Republican party
undoubtedly bestowed the suffrage on
the ex-slave with view to securing con-
tinued Republican political ascendancy
in the United States, and not from any
conviction of the wisdom of the measure.
Mr.. Lincoln. himself, was 80 deeply i'm
pressed with the impolicy Of attempting
to assimilate such large and amorphous
voting material into the voting popula-
ton of this country that he proposed q
wholesale scheme of deportation of the
colored population. Under the excite
ment of his assassination, schemes of re-
construction were rushed through that
would undoubtedly have failed to receive
the sanction of his mature judgment.
In our later politics Mr.. James G.
Blaine has, in two Of his nota-
able speeches, made a kick against
the strength which the colored vote
gives the South in the apportionment Of
the House of Representatives and conse-
qusntly in the electoral colleges. The
Maine statesman was the first of his
party to realize the bitterness involved
in the sentiment OF Macbeth, "That we
but teach bloody instructions which, be-
ing taught, return to plague the in
ventor."
This was the old case of the poisoned
chalice, returned to the lips that fabri-
Gated the decoction. In Memphis, Ten
nessee, on Decoration Day, Mr.. Blaine
had sympathizer who went as far in
speech as the Plumed Knight probably
did in thought, in the person of Major
7. B. Edginston, a prominent Republi-
can, who was selected to deliver the ora
ton over the Federal dead. The
Major has resided in Memphis since
the war closed; and the Tennessee
journal from whose columns we take the
account of his proceedings, says that his
Grafton was received with Kisses instead
of cheers by the mixed white and colored
audience. After paying tribute to the
heroism of the Union soldiers, the Major,
himself Union veteran, launched out
as follows:
He spoke of the future consequences
which would grow out of the enfranchise.
ment of the negro. He compared the in
crease of the negro race with the English
sparrow and the Australian rabbit. At
the present rate of increase he said that
in ten years, upon free ballot and fair
count, we will find nine States in this
Union ruled by ex-slaves, it's unlettered
property holders, while its intelligent
property holders will be in hopeless
minority.
The Major claimed that negro suffrage
proved curse, rather than blessing
and he favored modification of the Fiji
feenth Amendment 30 that it shall not
exceed 8 or 10 per cent. of the white vote
He maintains that the white man should
have the supremacy. Said he, there is
an irrepresslble conflict between white
suffrage and the negro suffrage. All
dreams of dividing the (c.) vote are Uto-
plan. This vote is now, and always will
be. race vote. The negro never can at.
tain that position OF superiority that viii
permit his vote to ever become anything
but a race vote. The enactment of negro
suffrage was the great crime of the age,
The guardian angel of our unfortunate
country was sleeping when that foul deed
was done. Any Republican who sim
cerely favors negro suffrage is the mis-