The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-04
SUFFRAGE IN OREGON.

The St. Louis Republic Is q Democratic
journal of good repute for intelligence,
ability and good sense. and We are sur
prised to find in its issue of May % very
ignorant editorial which takes for its text
the following inquiry:
Does the Republican state OF Oregon allow
negroes to voter Please answer through the
Republic
The Republic quotes the sixth section of
the second article of the constitution of
Oregon, as follows:
Section 6. No negro, Chinaman or mulatto
shall have the right of suffrage.
1t quotes also from the tribune Al
manac' for 1892, as follows:
Oregon requirement as to citizenship-White
citizen. Persons excluded from suffrage
Idiots. negroes mulattoes, Cinnamon and per.
sons convicted OF penitentiary ofenses.
The Republic then says:
We feel authorized TO infer from this that
Oregon Is still unreconstrusted, and as the Re-
publicans of the state have kept 1t so thus long
ii Is fair to infer further that they do not intend
To be reconstructed at all II they can help it
The federal constitution, as reconstructed. de-
mands that they shall mako no discrimination
on account OF race, color or previous condition
of servtude Yet they discriminate against the
African and Monaghan races and against the
two distinct colors, black aud yellow, as well az
against the various shades of lemon color Illus
trated in mulattoes.
The constitution of Oregon was framed
in 1857, and the state was admitted into
the Union in 1859. The pro-slavery Democ-
racy, which elected Franklin Pierce and
James Buchanan to the presidency, was
strong in Oregon when its constitution
was framed. Governor 10 Lane, who was
a secessionst, was the leader of the De-
mocracy. and the rank and file of the party
was largely recruited from Pike county,
Missouri; from Southern Indiana and that
part of Southern Illinois known as Egypt.
The exclusion of negroes from the suffrage
by the Oregon constitution of 1857 was
the work of these Democratic victims of
negrophobia. The constitution of Oregon
has never been amended since its admis-
sion to the Union, and yet negroes have
always voted III Oregon since the ratifica-
ton of the fifteenth amendment to the
constitution in March, 1870.
The st. Louis Republic is too intelligent
paper to need 10 be told that the ratiti-
cation of the fourteenth amendment made
the negro u Cttllcu, tue ESliIlC3tlOu OF the
fifteenth amendment made him voter.
OF course all provisions of the Oregon con-
stitution of 1857 inconsistent with these
amendments were rendered nugatory by
the ratification Of the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments. In the celebrated
',slaughter-house cases" the supreme
court OF the United States. April "A, 1873,
speaking by Mr.. Justice Miller. said;
Negroes snd mulattoes, born in the United
States and subject 90 the jurisdiction thereof. 10y
virtue Of the fourteenth amendment, are
now citizens ot The United States and OF the
state whereia they reside, and therefore by vir-
tue az the fifteenth amendment are entitled TO
the right OF suffrsge ia the state in which they
reside the same as white citizens
With the ratification OF these amend
ments the Oregon constitution Of 1857 was
no longer of any force, so TAR IS the rrohi-
hilton of negro suffrage was concerned, or
so far as the prohibition of Chinese suf-
frace. if the Chinaman was born in this
country. The people of Oregon. by the rati-
1cation Of the fourteenth and fifteenth